Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: Interest Rate Exportation Under Attack Part II
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: Interest Rate Exportation Under Attack Part I
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: What the Recent Developments in Federal Preemption for National and State Banks Mean for Bank and Nonbank Consumer Financial Services Providers
Podcast: 2023 Deal Cycle - Considerations for Transactions in Uncertain Economic Times - Diagnosing Health Care
DE Under 3: Latest Monthly Jobs Report, Unemployment & the US BLS JOLTS Report
THE WONDER YEARS WEBINAR
Mad Dogs and Panameños!
It's (Not) Too Late, Baby!
Switch Hitter! Maximizing the Flexibility of Split Dollar Life Insurance to Create Maximum Financial and Tax Leverage
SWITCH HITTER! Maximizing the Flexibility of Split Dollar Life Insurance to Create Maximum Financial and Tax Leverage
The Family Loan Shark
Podcast: Credit Funds: Withholding Tax on European Investments
Investment Management Update – Exit Strategies
Podcast - Credit Funds: Make-Wholes and Cramdowns: Understanding the Recent Second Circuit Momentive Decision
Will The Debt Ceiling Standoff End Up In Court?
Symptoms of Student Loan Crisis Reveal Bubble About to Burst
On May 21, the Massachusetts Attorney General (AG) released an Assurance of Discontinuance against a lender for allegedly violating the state’s Consumer Protection Act (CPA) provision on unfair and deceptive acts and...more
A bill before the New York State Assembly would, if passed, have major implications for a variety of financing transactions in the Empire State. Titled the End Loan Sharking Act, Assembly Bill 9585 would subject a variety of...more
A California state court recently denied a preliminary injunction sought by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (the DFPI) in its long-running litigation against Opportunity Financial (OppFi)...more
On October 30, the Minnesota Attorney General’s office filed a complaint against a Montana tribal economic development entity claiming that the entity’s lending subsidiaries violated state and federal usury laws through...more
On September 5, 2023, a New York state court invalidated a loan agreement’s choice of law provision, ruling that the loan agreement was void and depriving the lender of both principal and interest payments. The lender, Samson...more
Every day, attorneys act as advisors to parties negotiating and drafting contracts. Among those terms often left to the lawyers are choice-of-law provisions. Which state’s law governs a dispute, in theory, should not...more
By: Jeffrey M. Haber In our last article (here), we examined a choice-of-law provision that, if applied, would violate New York public policy concerning usurious loans. In that case, Virginia law, which does not prohibit...more
On June 23, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed a circuit court’s decision on a case involving Michigan’s “longstanding prohibition on excessive interest rates for certain loans.” The case involved a “usury savings clause,”...more
In Soaring Pine Capital Real Estate & Debt Fund II, LLC v. Park Street Group Realty Services, LLC, the Michigan Supreme Court considered whether a court may enforce a usury savings clause in a mortgage agreement. A usury...more
Usury is the unlawful lending of money at unreasonably high rates of interest. So, what is unreasonable? And what happens if your loan goes beyond that amount?...more
In its April 2023 Opposition to the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) motion for preliminary injunction, Opportunity Financial, LLC (OppFi) presents a spirited riposte, drilling down into the...more
California limits the amount of interest that may be charged on loans and forbearances. While that is the general rule, there are numerous statutory exemptions. One of those exemptions can be found in California...more
Does California's usury limitations constitute a "strong public policy"? Seemingly, that question was decided over a half-century ago by the First District Court of Appeal in Ury v. Jewelers Acceptance Corp., 227 Cal. App....more
On January 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit concluded that a district court did not abuse its discretion when certifying a class action. The lawsuit alleges an individual who orchestrated an online payday...more
In December, the State of Iowa and the Iowa Division of Banking entered into an Assurance of Discontinuance (“AOD”) with Transportation Alliance Bank, Inc. (the “Bank”) settling claims that the Bank charged usurious rates of...more
On June 6, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found that a contractual New York choice-of-law provision precluded a borrower-plaintiff from obtaining summary judgment on a usury claim brought...more
Notably, California has a constitutional limitation on interest rates (Cal. Const. Art. XV, Section 1). Section 25118 exempts certain evidences of indebtedness that meet specified conditions. One of these conditions is...more
On June 1, 2022, plaintiff Kristen Michael filed a class action lawsuit against FinTech lender Opportunity Financial, LLC (“OppFi”) on behalf of herself and a putative class alleging, inter alia, that OppFi loans money at an...more
On March 15, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated a district court’s denial of a borrower’s motion to dismiss lender claims. Applying the New York Court of Appeals’ guidance from certified questions,...more
More than six years after it was decided, the practical consequences of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit’s Madden v. Midland Funding, LLC decision continue to diminish. The decision—which held that, under some...more
In Adar Bays, LLC v. GeneSYS ID, Inc., the New York Court of Appeals (the “Court”) held that the conversion price in a convertible option could be classified as interest thereby potentially falling under the territory of New...more
Lenders often include fees in loan transactions in addition to an interest rate. Typically such fees are not considered interest, as they compensate the lender for various services or commitments provided under the loan...more
On March 23, 2021, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed into law Senate Bill 1792, enacting the Predatory Loan Prevention Act (PLPA) and capping interest at an “all-in” 36% APR (similar to the Military Lending Act’s MAPR) for...more
In the most recent development in Cohen v. Capital One Funding LLC, a case seeking to certify a class asserting that New York State’s usury laws can apply to securitized credit card debts, Capital One-affiliated defendants...more
On November 5, 2020, the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had filed a complaint against a Florida-based payday lender and its CEO in the Southern District of Florida. The complaint alleges that...more