Perspectives on Consumer Financial Services

Consumer Financial Services Partner Jenny Lee recently spoke with American Banker reporter Kate Berry about key enforcement issues surrounding the newly led Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The US policy behind this mandate is consistent with the desire to encourage open banking standards, albeit in a more piecemeal fashion than what has already been done in the UK.

Join Arent Fox Partner Jenny Lee as she speaks at the ABA’s Business Law Virtual Spring Meeting.

Arent Fox is monitoring policy changes by the Biden Administration to provide timely analysis on how they could impact your business.

The Trump era of the last four years is regarded in the popular press as one of federal deregulation, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which will commemorate the eleventh anniversary of its founding later this year, was often viewed as no exception.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau or CFPB) has recently issued a formal proposal for a national regulatory standard governing companies’ handling of consumer data and their privacy rights with respect to financial data.

This week on The CardLinx Association’s Fin-Tech Friday Podcast, Arent Fox Partner Jenny Lee discusses how the major developments transpiring in financial data and privacy regulations will impact business.

This article was originally published in The Banking Law Journal.

The new bill, which follows April 23, 2020 legislation aimed at opening COVID-19 emergency response funding to cannabis businesses, offers a previously unclear path forward for financial services to the cannabis industry by amending the current restrictive regulatory framework on banking.

On May 6, 2020, Judge Richard G. Stearns of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts put the brakes on an attempt by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey to alter the relationship between collectors and consumer debtors during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

It feels like only yesterday that we were discussing the seminal 2018 DC Circuit case, PHH Corp. v. CFPB, the first decision to uphold the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau).

The case reveals the Trump administration’s express recognition of the importance of the bureau’s work and highlights the declining ability of companies to challenge bureau investigations on constitutional grounds.

The result of such denials was not just academic; as a practical matter, they have paved the way forward for the Bureau to continue its investigatory work over the constitutional objections asserted by regulated entities. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic reaches further into all corners of the United States, a bevy of federal, state, and local emergency orders aimed at slowing the outbreak’s spread continues to impact an increasing number of industries and workers. 

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) seeks industry feedback and public comment on various aspects of the remittance rule (Rule), which implements Section 1073 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act).

California is poised to join the growing cadre of states enhancing their consumer financial protection functions in response to perceived decreasing federal oversight and enforcement under the Trump administration.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the Bureau) recently issued an official policy statement (Policy) that illuminates how the Bureau will apply the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act’s (Dodd-Frank Act) provision outlawing “abusive acts or practices.”

On January 19, 2020 from 11:15 am – 12:15 pm, Arent Fox Partner J.H. Jennifer Lee, will be moderating a panel at the 2020 ABA Consumer Financial Services Committee Winter Meeting titled, “Innovation: The CFPB’s No-Action Letters, Regulatory Sandboxes, and Trial Disclosure Policies.”

On November 22, 2019, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) filed a complaint and proposed stipulated judgment in federal district court in the Southern District of New York against Sterling Infosystems, Inc. (Sterling).

A recent 10-year study and report issued by Lex Machina has illuminated important federal court litigation trends in the consumer protection space.

In this video episode of Fashion Counsel, Arent Fox Fashion & Retail Practice Leader Anthony Lupo and Arent Fox Partner Jenny Lee discuss consumer finance issues related to the fashion and retail industries.

So much to say, so little time. Historically groundbreaking, a federal court in Madison, Wisconsin engaged in the most robust, methodical damages analysis under the Consumer Financial Protection Act, found in Title X of the Dodd-Frank Act, that had ever been undertaken in recent years.

The rulemaking also has the potential to address how the agency is to properly effectuate the purpose of the Dodd-Frank Act.

Earlier this week, Bloomberg Law reported that courts have stayed CFPB litigation while they wait for a Supreme Court ruling on the bureau’s structure and those stays could reduce the CFPB’s leverage in enforcement matters.

As promised, we return now to provide an overview of the CFPB’s petition activity for the year to-date. In addition to the Bank of America (BofA) petition denial we discussed last month, the CFPB has issued a series of decisions denying petitions to modify or set aside civil investigative demands.