Although the Betsy DeVos resigned as Secretary of Education last week, the Department has continued to push ahead in the rush to the Trump Administration finish line. On Friday, ED's Office of the General Counsel published a memorandum stating that LGBTQ students are not expressly included in protections under Title IX, the law that prohibits […]
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
From the States' press release: Attorneys general from New York, California and several other states sued on Tuesday to block the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's recently finalized "true lender" rule, a measure that the states argue is unlawful and stands to facilitate predatory lending. In a complaint filed in New York federal […]
Many states bar super-high interest rates. But high-cost lenders can circumvent such limits, known as usury caps, through rent-a-bank schemes. And under the Trump administration, the schemes have gotten a boost from two rules approved this year by the top federal banking regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Focusing on a small […]
The National Consumer Law Center issued a report on the impact of debt-collection during the pandemic and state laws that help, or harm, struggling families. From NCLC's press release: As millions of families suffer job loss or struggle to pay bills during COVID-19, states have an important role in protecting them from seizure of essential […]
Eight state attorneys general today filed a lawsuit challenging a new Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation rule that creates a loophole allowing predatory lenders to evade state laws that forbid excessive interest-rate charges. From the California attorney general's press release: "These caps on interest rates play a critical role in regulating payday loans and other high-cost […]
Today, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a proposed rule to overturns the “true lender” rule that courts have used since the early 1800s to prevent evasions of state usury laws. The deadline to submit comments on the OCC’s proposal is September 3, 2020. In a statement, the National Consumer Law Center […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today announced a final rule rescinding payday loans protections that had been issued in October 2017. Among the provisions rescinded are those limiting unaffordable loans that trap families in cycles of debt. The CFPB also announced that it will implement the provisions of the payday loan rule that prevent lenders, […]
As established by the Dodd-Frank Act in 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was headed by a director who could the President could remove only for cause (inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office). The CFPB’s first director was appointed on January 4, 2012. On June 29, 2020, the Supreme Court held in Seila […]
"A federal judge has ordered the Department of Education to cancel the student loans of all 7,200 former Corinthian Colleges students in Massachusetts. This is the first time a federal court has ordered a borrower defense discharge of federal student loans. "The victory in Vara v. DeVos comes nearly two years after the Department of […]
The D.C. attorney general sued four of the world’s largest oil and gas companies — BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell — Thursday, asserting that they have engaged in a decades-long campaign to deceive District consumers about the effects of fossil fuels on climate change. The lawsuit, based on the DC Consumer Protection Procedures Act and […]