In this month's article, we share some of our top "bites" for the prior and current month covered during the July 2024 webinar....more
On July 11, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit held in Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection v. Townstone Financial, Inc., that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”) prohibits discriminatory conduct,...more
On March 28, 2024, four former Walden University students (“Plaintiffs”) filed a proposed settlement both individually and on behalf of a putative class of current and former Walden University (“Walden”) students with the...more
In this article, we share a timeline of our monthly "bites" for 2023 applicable to mortgage along with some additional related information. ...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 week, the annual Community Reinvestment Act & Fair Lending Colloquium took place in Austin, Texas. Two officials from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) discussed in detail the “Combatting Redlining Initiative” led by...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
On October 19, 2023, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that its Combating Redlining Initiative has resulted in over $107 million in relief for communities adversely affected by lending discrimination by mortgage...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
In the last three weeks, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) reached two more settlements with lenders under its Combatting Redlining Initiative, which began in October 2021. On September 27, the DOJ announced that...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it has entered into a settlement with American Bank of Oklahoma (ABOK) to resolve allegations that ABOK engaged in unlawful redlining in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The DOJ opened its...more
On June 14, 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed its opening brief in its appeal of a U.S. district court’s decision in the CFPB’s enforcement action against Townstone Mortgage (Townstone). The CFPB’s...more
As shown by a new report, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) is focusing its fair lending work on mortgage origination and pricing, small business lending, redlining, and the use of artificial...more
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) filed an amicus brief in a case before the Seventh Circuit that was brought on appeal by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) against a Chicago-area lender, Townstone...more
The CFPB has filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a private lawsuit brought by a group of eight Black and Hispanic plaintiffs who alleged that the named defendants, which included a...more
The FTC has filed an amicus brief in support of the CFPB’s appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from the district court’s decision in the CFPB’s enforcement action against Townstone Mortgage...more
The CFPB has filed its opening brief in its appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from the district court’s decision in the CFPB’s enforcement action against Townstone Mortgage (Townstone). In the case,...more
Regulatory Developments - Overdraft Protection Programs: Risk Management Practices - On April 26, the OCC issued guidance in OCC Bulletin 2013-12, “Overdraft Protection Programs: Risk Management Practices,” to...more
On April 3, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed a notice to appeal a district court’s decision to dismiss its complaint against Townstone Finance, Inc. (Townstone), a nonbank mortgage lender, and its...more
On February 3, 2023, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted Defendants Townstone Financial, Inc., a mortgage broker/lender, and Barry Sturner’s, Townstone’s owner, motion to dismiss the...more
A&B ABstract: On Friday, in the CFPB v. Townstone Financial fair lending case, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed with prejudice the complaint filed by the Consumer Financial Protection...more
On February 3, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed with prejudice claims that a Chicago-based nonbank mortgage company and its owner violated ECOA by engaging in discriminatory marketing...more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been contemplating data, algorithms, and machine learning for years. In 2017, as part of a field hearing on alternative data, the CFPB issued a request for information in...more
Welcome to the Financial Services Report, holiday style! Banks and non-banks alike started early this year with additions and changes to their regulator stockings. The Senate confirmed Rohit Chopra as the new CFPB Director....more
At the beginning of his term, President Biden declared that his administration would make it a policy to eliminate “racial bias and other forms of discrimination in all states of home-buying and renting.”...more