The FTC issued a release on October 18, 2022, to announce that it has initiated an enforcement action in Maryland against a Washington, D.C.-area auto dealer group, Passport Automotive Group, as well as two of its executives, Everett Hellmuth and Jay Klein. In the same release, the FTC announced that Passport, Hellmuth, and Klein have

Two recent announcements by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) will push the mortgage servicing industry to increase its collection and maintenance of consumer demographic and language preference data.

On May 3, 2022, the FHFA announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs) will require lenders submitting loans to the GSEs to use

On July 27, 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Trident Mortgage Company LP for alleged discrimination against minority families in the greater Philadelphia area.

According to the CFPB’s press release

As we have repeatedly discussed this year in our Financial Services Perspectives blog, the current leadership of the CFPB has placed a significant emphasis upon fair lending. Seemingly once a month, or even more frequently at times, Director Rohit Chopra has announced a new initiative concerning fair lending and discrimination in the financial services industry.

On May 5, 2022, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (collectively the agencies) issued a joint notice of proposed rulemaking (the Proposed CRA Rule) that proposes changes to the way the agencies evaluate a bank’s performance under the

Until last month, government enforcement and regulatory scrutiny of fraud and other misconduct relating to COVID-19 relief programs was generally limited to end recipients of the relief. These efforts have mostly been directed to fraud in connection with the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a nearly $1 trillion business loan program administered by the Small Business

The current leadership of the CFPB has not been shy about highlighting the importance of fair lending—and it is becoming increasingly clear that fair lending and equity within the financial services industry is one of the CFPB’s greatest priorities under Director Rohit Chopra. Just last month, the CFPB released a blog post to discuss possible

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) issued a release on March 16, 2022 in order to announce changes to its supervisory operations with respect to discriminatory lending and servicing practices. 

In its press release, the CFPB explains that it has changed its approach towards examination of banks and non-banks in order to more closely “scrutinize”

In early February, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent its annual letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The letter explained the FTC’s activities related to the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) and Regulation B of ECOA. Pursuant to a January 2012 memorandum of understanding between the CFPB and the FTC, and consistent with

CFPB Warns of Serious Issues with Fair Lending Standards for AppraisersThe Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) released a blog post on February 4 warning of the possibility of discrimination in the appraisal process. The CFPB explained that, although appraisal discrimination based on racial inequalities has been outlawed for more than 50 years, they are still seeing reports of biased appraisers who “base their value judgments