Roughly three months ago, President Biden signed an executive order that, among other things, directed HUD to reevaluate earlier agency decisions perceived to weaken the Fair Housing Act. In response to this directive, HUD has submitted draft rules to the Office of Management and Budget that would roll back two significant changes made by the
Federal Agencies
CFPB Signals Continued Progress Toward Dodd-Frank 1071 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
On the heels of CFPB Acting Director Dave Uejio’s recently released statement to agency staff members, the Bureau again signaled that it is making progress toward issuing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) enacting Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the Dodd-Frank Act). Specifically, in late February, the CFPB…
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Issues Statement Regarding Small Dollar Lending and Signals Return to Prior Policy
On March 23, 2021, the CFPB issued a brief statement highlighting its position regarding “consumer harms in the small dollar lending market” and likely future action to reverse the previous CFPB administration’s policy regarding the industry. The next day, the CFPB provided its Consumer Response Annual Report for 2020 to Congress, which stated the complaint…
Although the COVID-19 Pandemic Persists, So Does the Constitution
Landlords in the state of Texas won a battle over their ability to conduct residential evictions when a federal court struck down the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) broad eviction moratorium last Thursday. On February 25, Judge John Barker of the Eastern District of Texas granted summary judgment in favor of a group of landlords…
Acting CFPB Director Uejio Reiterates Commitment to Issuing Regulations Enacting Dodd-Frank 1071
On February 4, 2021, acting CFPB Director Dave Uejio published a blog post sharing statements recently made to the staff of the CFPB’s Division of Research, Markets, and Regulations (RMR). In his post, Uejio stressed two policy priorities for the CFPB: “(1) relief for consumers facing hardship due to COVID-19 and the related economic crisis…
Untouchable No More: Reinforcements Arrive for TCPA Defendants Battling the FCC’s Aggressive Expansion of the Statute
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) was signed into law almost 30 years ago when around 3% of the population owned cellular telephones and no one had heard of – let alone sent – a text message. Since that time, the legislature has substantively amended the TCPA only once to create a government debt exception.…
GSE Deferral Programs Continue to Pose Risk for Mortgage Servicers
In mid May 2020, we highlighted that the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (GSEs) COVID-19 payment deferral programs put mortgage servicers at risk of violating some of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Mortgage Servicing Rules in Regulation X. When originally introduced, the GSEs’ COVID-19 payment deferral programs seemed to require servicers to offer a…
OCC Releases Final True Lender Rule
On October 27, 2020, the OCC released its final True Lender Rule. As discussed earlier on this blog, the OCC’s rule is designed to clarify the “true lender” doctrine, a legal test utilized by courts and regulators to determine whether a bank or its non-bank partner is the actual lender in a credit transaction.…
Facilitating Ransomware Payments Entails Sanctions Risks, OFAC Warns
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued an advisory on October 1, 2020, warning companies that engage with the victims of ransomware attacks that they run the risk of violating U.S. sanctions by facilitating ransomware payments. Ransomware attacks have increased in number and sophistication in recent years and have netted larger and…
State Attorneys General Challenge FDIC’s Madden Fix
In early August 2020, several state attorneys general filed suit against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) challenging the OCC’s proposed “Madden Fix.” Notably, while the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) also issued their own Madden Fix, the agency was not named as a defendant in the initial lawsuit. As such,…