Federal Trade Commission announced today that Jessica Rich, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, is leaving the agency on February 17, after 26 years of service. The press release is here.
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
In the New York Times today, Paul Krugman discusses the "fiduciary rule" that the President last week ordered the Department of Labor to "reconsider." Last week Mr. Trump released a memorandum calling on the Department of Labor to reconsider its new “fiduciary rule,” which requires financial advisers to act in their clients’ best interests — […]
Last week, 17 state attorneys general, two congresspeople, and several consumer-advocacy organizations moved to intervene in PHH v. CFPB, pending in the DC Circuit. The motions each sought to intervene to support (and if the agency stopped defending the case to pursue) the CFPB's petition for rehearing of the court's decision last fall, in which […]
The Wall Street Journal contemplates whether the CFPB is subject to the slew of recent executive orders: A memo issued Jan. 20—Inauguration Day—ordered “executive departments and agencies” to temporarily suspend filing new regulations and delay the implementation of pending rules to give President Donald Trump’s appointees the chance to study them. …. Another executive order […]
Among the flood of Executive Orders over the past 8 days, and the uproar of the refugee ban, one important EO has not gotten much attention. Yesterday, Mr. Trump signed an order requiring agencies to repeal 2 regulations for every 1 they issue. The EO is flawed in many ways, and will be good for […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday took action "against a ring of law firms and attorneys who collaborated to charge illegal fees to consumers seeking debt relief. In a complaint filed in federal court, the CFPB alleges that Howard Law, P.C., the Williamson Law Firm, LLC, and Williamson & Howard, LLP, as well as attorneys […]
Under a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and the State of Florida, the operators of an alleged student debt relief and credit repair scam will be banned from those lines of business. The stipulated final order resolves charges the FTC and the State of Florida brought in April 2016, against Chastity Valdes and her […]
The Federal Trade Commission has released Cross-Device Tracking: An FTC Staff Report that describes the technology used to track consumers across multiple Internet-connected devices, the benefits and challenges associated with it, and industry efforts to address those challenges. The report concludes by making recommendations to industry about how to apply traditional principles like transparency, choice, […]
In addition to intervention in the suit mentioned by Jeff (below), 6 state attorneys general today moved to intervene in a federal district court case against the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS), an accreditor of for-profit colleges. The suit is a challenge by ACICS to the Department of Education decision to terminate […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is still at work. Yesterday, the CFPB took separate actions against CitiFinancial Servicing and CitiMortgage, Inc. "for giving the runaround to struggling homeowners seeking options to save their homes. The mortgage servicers kept borrowers in the dark about options to avoid foreclosure or burdened them with excessive paperwork demands in […]