The CFPB warned on July 24, 2024, that confidentiality agreements that employees of a company are required to sign likely violate federal law if those agreements imply that employees could face retaliation from their...more
7/30/2024
/ Confidentiality Agreements ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Consumer Lenders ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Whistleblowers
With the dark cloud over the CFPB that was the constitutional challenge to the for-cause limit on removal of its Director having mostly lifted, a new and even darker cloud has descended in the form of another constitutional...more
In Scheffler v. Gurstel Chargo, P.A., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit rejected a career plaintiff’s attempts to manufacture a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) claim by baiting a debt collector into...more
Businesses that have not already done so should consult with counsel regarding "consent to be called" provisions in their consumer contracts in the wake of the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit...more
An $11.7 million judgment awarded against credit reporting company Experian in a 69,000-member class action brought under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) was vacated by the Fourth Circuit in Dreher v. Experian...more
In a case presenting a question of first impression in the federal courts of appeals, the Ninth Circuit has held that a prospective employer violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) when it procures a job applicant's...more
A federal district court in Florida has ruled that a debt collector did not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) by sending a collection letter in an envelope that allegedly revealed a barcode in which the...more
While CFPB officials have suggested in public remarks that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act’s prohibition against discrimination on the basis of “sex” includes discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, a...more
9/22/2016
/ Banking Sector ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Corporate Counsel ,
ECOA ,
Fair Lending ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Gender Identity ,
LGBTQ ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Richard Cordray ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Transgender
A debt collector did not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) by filing proofs of claim in bankruptcy cases on debts that were time-barred by Maryland’s statute of limitations (SOL), a divided U.S. Court of...more
9/12/2016
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Chapter 13 ,
Consumer Bankruptcy ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Debt Buyers ,
Debt Collection ,
FDCPA ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Proof of Claims ,
Statute of Limitations ,
Time-Barred Debt
A plaintiff did not have Article III standing to assert claims under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) for alleged autodialed calls made to her without her consent, a California federal district court recently...more
8/22/2016
/ Article III ,
Auto-Dialed Calls ,
Banking Sector ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Debt Collection ,
Dismissals ,
Injury-in-Fact ,
Popular ,
Prior Express Consent ,
Robocalling ,
Standing ,
TCPA
A debt collection law firm did not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) by leaving a voicemail message for the plaintiff that identified the law firm but did not expressly state that the law firm was a debt...more
The Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Bureau of Consumer Protection issued a Staff Comment on June 16, 2016, supporting several of the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) proposed regulations implementing amendments to...more
In St. John v. Cach, LLC, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently issued an opinion holding that the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) does not prohibit debt collectors from filing collection...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued new guidance to help background screening companies comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) when conducting background checks on current or prospective employees. The new...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently published a reminder to debt collectors of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) compliance risks that are created by the use of social media or text messages in connection...more
4/1/2016
/ Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) ,
Cell Phones ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Debt Collection ,
Debt Collectors ,
Facebook ,
FDCPA ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Popular ,
Risk Management ,
Social Media ,
TCPA ,
Text Messages
A recent letter from Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler describes the regulations being considered by the FCC for implementing new Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) exemptions for calls made...more
3/16/2016
/ Auto-Dialed Calls ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Debt Collection ,
Exemptions ,
FCC ,
IRS ,
NPRM ,
Popular ,
Prior Express Consent ,
Robocalling ,
TCPA
A Texas law that prohibits merchants from imposing a surcharge on credit card purchases, but allows a discount for cash purchases, does not violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, a divided panel of the U.S....more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received more than 3 million consumer complaints in 2015 with debt collection topping the list, according to its newly released Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book. The annual report, which...more
A creditor that received a consumer's cell phone number through an intermediary had the consumer's ''prior express consent'' under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) to receive calls from a debt collector, the U.S....more
2/29/2016
/ Auto-Dialed Calls ,
Cell Phones ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Debt Collection ,
FCC ,
Health Care Providers ,
Popular ,
Prior Express Consent ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Summary Judgment ,
TCPA
A debt collector did not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) by leaving a voicemail message on a cell phone shared by the debtor with her boyfriend because it was not reasonably foreseeable that he would...more
A federal district court in New York has ruled that a debt collector did not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) by sending a collection letter in an envelope that allegedly revealed an internal tracking...more
A Florida law that prohibits merchants from imposing a surcharge on credit card purchases but allows a discount for cash purchases violates the First Amendment, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th...more
Prior to the amendment, these calls would have been prohibited absent the recipient’s prior express consent if placed to a cellular telephone and if they were made by an automatic telephone dialing system or included an...more
Weighing in on an issue that has divided the federal courts of appeals, the Second Circuit has held that under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), a court that grants a motion to compel arbitration of all claims must stay the...more
Phone calls made to promote a movie constituted “telemarketing” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) even though the two prerecorded messages left on the plaintiffs’ home phone line made no reference to the...more
7/30/2015
/ Article III ,
Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Do Not Call List ,
Popular ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Robocalling ,
SCOTUS ,
Spokeo ,
Spokeo v Robins ,
Standing ,
TCPA ,
Telemarketing