Firm News

On February 7, 2023, the CFPB released an advisory opinion regarding the applicability of Section 8 of RESPA. Through its advisory opinion, the CPFB addressed mortgage comparison websites who appear to be objectively directing consumers to lenders when the websites are actually steering customers to specific lenders on the basis of fees paid for promotion. Director Chopra stated that “we are working to ensure that online platforms are not manipulating their search results in order to coerce kickbacks from lenders.” Read More

On February 3, 2023, the California Privacy Protection Agency (“CPPA”) voted to adopt and approve their most recent rulemaking package involving the California Privacy Rights Act draft regulations. The Rulemaking package includes the final regulations redline to prior draft versions of the regulations, a final statement of reasons and appendices to the final statement of reasons. Read More

On January 23rd, the United States Supreme Court dismissed in a per curiam order In re Grand Jury, a case examining the scope of the attorney-client privilege two weeks after hearing oral arguments. The case invited the Supreme Court to decide a recurring question: When a client confers with a lawyer and receives both legal and non-legal advice, and the non legal advice cannot be disentangled from the legal advice, does the attorney-client privilege protect all of the advice or none of it? Read More

On January 24, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) issued a request for information regarding the consumer credit card market as part of its obligation under the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (“CARD Act”) to conduct a review, within the limits of its existing resources available for reporting purposes, of the consumer credit card market every two years. The CFPB published its first CARD Act review in December 2015 and has published subsequent reviews in December 2017, August 2019 and September 2021. Section 502(b) of the CARD Act specifically instructs the CFPB to seek public comment to inform its review of the consumer credit card market. To that end, the CFPB is now inviting public comment to inform the upcoming 2023 review. Read More

On December 12, 2022 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) issued a proposed rule that would require certain nonbank entities falling under CFPB supervision to register with the CFPB after becoming subject to a public written order or judgment based upon violations of certain consumer protection laws. The entities would be required to self-report the applicable order to the CFPB and provide basic identifying and administrative information about the entity as well as information regarding the orders (including copies of the orders). The resulting registry will be made available to the public to mitigate risks to consumers and “unify the efforts of consumer financial protection enforcers.” Read More

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) released a report revealing that Reserve and National Guard members of the armed forces are not always receiving the benefit of their right to rate reductions under the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (“SCRA”). The CFPB would like creditors to be more proactive in helping servicemembers obtain SCRA benefits. Read More

The Ohio General Assembly passed S.B. No. 249 to create a regulatory sandbox program for novel financing products and services. The bill requires the Ohio Superintendent of Financial
Intuitions to establish a regulatory sandbox program to enable a person to test novel financial products and services in Ohio on a temporary basis without obtaining a license or authorization that would otherwise be required. Under the new law novel financial products and services are permitted to be tested in the regulatory sandbox for up to two years, with a possible one year extension if the sandbox participant is seeking licensure. Read More

In response to a written request by the Small Business Finance Association, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published a notice of intent to make a preemption determination regarding whether the Truth in Lending Act preempts the New York Commercial Finance Disclosure Law with respect to certain provisions. See our Alerts dated Sept. 29, 2022 and Dec. 14, 2020 for our discussion of the New York law. The CFPB also provided notice that it is considering whether to make a preemption determination regarding state laws in California, Utah and Virginia that are potentially similar to the New York law. See our ALERTS dated June 15, 2022 (California) and May 6, 2022 (Utah and Virginia) for our discussion of these laws. The CFPB is soliciting public comment on the preemption issue. Comments must be received on
or before January 20, 2023. Read More

The Dodd-Frank Act amended The Truth in Lending Act (TILA) by requiring that the dollar threshold for exempt consumer credit transactions be adjusted annually by the annual percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). If there is no annual percentage increase in the CPI-W, the exemption threshold from the prior year is not adjusted. The Dodd-Frank Act requires similar adjustments in the Consumer Leasing Act’s threshold for exempt consumer leases. TILA establishes special appraisal requirements for “higher-priced mortgage loans.” The regulations implementing these requirements exempted transactions of $25,000 or less and required that this loan amount be adjusted annually based on any annual percentage increase in the CPI-W. Read More

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued a notice of advanced public rulemaking on so-called “junk fees.” The notice is an early step in the administrative process for drafting a regulation. The FTC is seeking public comments on twenty-one separate questions on various practices relating to the advertisement and disclosure of fees, competition on fees, the extent the fees cover a value-added, consumer perception of fees and how to best write a precise rule governing fees. Read More