The National Consumer Law Center is asking the CFPB, by way of a petition, for rulemaking that is long on policy arguments but woefully short on legal support, as we note below, to define residential leases as “credit” under...more
On August 7, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky granted the CFPB’s motion to stay the small business lending rule litigation before the court until resolution of the similar case pending in the...more
With Loper Bright’s recent death blow to Chevron deference, some commentators have been predicting substantial constriction of the administrative state and the narrowing or limiting of the powers of federal regulators. For...more
In a major win for the CFPB, in CFPB v. Townstone Financial, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (7th Circuit) recently held that the Regulation B provision prohibiting discrimination under the Equal...more
On July 11, the Seventh Circuit held that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1691 et seq. (ECOA) authorizes the imposition of liability for the discouragement of prospective applicants. See CFPB v. Townstone...more
On July 11, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed a district court’s decision to dismiss the CFPB’s claims that a Chicago-based nonbank mortgage company and its owner violated ECOA by engaging in...more
As discussed here, on February 3, 2023, an Illinois federal court dismissed a case brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) in 2020 against Townstone Financial, Inc., a Chicago mortgage lender, for...more
Despite facing challenges both from Congress and in court, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) “Small Business Lending Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Regulation B)” (Small Business Rule) is likely...more
On February 12, the FTC provided the CFPB with an annual summary of its 2023 enforcement, research and policy development, and educational-related initiatives on ECOA, as Dodd-Frank allows the Commission to enforce ECOA and...more
On January 2, the FTC issued a complaint and stipulated order against a personal finance mobile application that offers its users short-term cash advances through “floats.” According to the complaint, the defendant...more
Revenue Based Finance Coalition (RBFC), a trade group whose members include non-banks that provide sales-based financing to businesses, filed a lawsuit last week against the CFPB in a Florida federal district court...more
On December 19, President Biden vetoed the joint resolution (S. J. Res. 32) the US Senate and House of Representatives passed under the Congressional Review Act that would have repealed the CFPB’s small business data...more
In July, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published a report highlighting various unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts or practices it claims to have uncovered during its supervisory examinations from July 2022 to...more
On December 8, 2023, oral arguments were held before a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the CFPB v. Townstone Financial case, in which the CFPB alleges that Townstone Financial, a...more
Last month, the Justice Department (DOJ) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a joint statement that reminded financial institutions that all credit applicants are protected from discrimination on the...more
On November 8, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that one of the nation's largest banks (the "Bank") agreed to settle charges that the Bank engaged in a pattern or practice of discriminating against...more
A group of eleven Republican Senators who are members of the Senate Banking Committee have sent a letter to CFPB Director Rohit Chopra and Attorney General Merrick Garland to urge the CFPB and DOJ to retract the joint...more
Recently the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) entered into a proposed consent order with Ameris Bank to resolve allegations of redlining from 2016 through 2021 in majority Black and Hispanic areas in the Bank’s Jacksonville,...more
In September, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued guidance on compliance with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act’s adverse action notice requirements for lenders utilizing artificial intelligence in their credit...more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have issued a new joint statement focused on anti-discrimination in lending practices as they relate to noncitizens. This guidance not only...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a settlement agreement with Washington Trust Company, of Westerly (WTC) to resolve claims that WTC redlined majority Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Rhode Island....more
On October 12, the CFPB and DOJ issued a joint statement that reminds financial institutions that all credit applicants are protected from discrimination on the basis of their national origin, race, and other characteristics...more
On October 12, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a joint statement emphasizing the risk associated with considering an applicant’s immigration status when making credit...more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Department of Justice have issued a joint statement regarding “the potential civil rights implications of a creditor’s consideration of an individual’s immigration status under the...more
Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) (collectively, the agencies) issued a joint statement on the subject of creditors’ use of immigration status for eligibility...more