Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

Kate Berry: DOJ says CFPB stop-work order maintains statutory functions

The American Banker’s Kate Berry reports on the DOJ reply in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals appeal from Judge Jackson’s preliminary injunction ordering that the CFPB stay open. Here’s a quote: “Once agency leadership recognized that employees had inferred the agency was winding down, it acted to dispel that misimpression,” the DOJ said, contradicting […]

Law360: DC Circ. Steps In To Pause CFPB Order As Judge Denies Stay

By Jon Hill, here. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals issued an administrative stay and explained “The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the emergency motion for stay pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion.” […]

Why hasn’t the Senate voted on CFPB nominee McKernan’s confirmation yet?

The Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on CFPB-Director nominee Jonathan McKernan and three nominees for other agencies back on February 27 and voted to confirm them all at the same session, back on March 6. The full Senate confirmed the other three on March 12 and March 13. Yet the full Senate has not […]

District Court enters preliminary injunction against effectively shutting down the CFPB

Some remarkable statements in the opinion (this is all I have time for now):. Judge Jackson wrote of the CFPB’s employee testifying for the agency: “He had the demeanor of an abused wife brought to court by her husband to drop the charges.” “The testimony and the contemporaneous documents suggest that those last minute communications […]

House Financial Services Committee CFPB Hearing; Frotman’s on fire

Here. Oral openers by the industry witnesses call for the CFPB to become a bipartisan commission without noting that Trump has fired the Democratic FTC commissioners, so that bipartisan really means one party. Meanwhile, former CFPB General Counsel Seth Frotman’s oral opening statement was terrific. His written testimony is here. Here’s an excerpt (footnotes omitted): […]