Category Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Interview with former CFPB Policy Fellow Amelia O’Rourke-Owens

At Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Finance Monitor podcast. From the episode description: Amelia advances a bold thesis in her article: that consumer protection law, and particularly consumer financial protection law, may be the most impactful body of law in the United States. She further argues that the strength of consumer protection laws may serve as a […]

Mourning Barney Frank

Barney Frank, whose name graces the Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB and enacted multiple consumer protections, has died at the age of 86. As long as the CFPB protects consumers (it will rise again!), the CFPB and the Consumer Financial Protection Act stand as a memorial to Frank’s important work to protect Americans.

CFPB regs outlawing disparate impact under ECOA are out

Here. New § 1002.6 provides in part: ECOA “does not provide that the ‘effects test’ applies for determining whether there is discrimination in violation of the Act.” The regulation also purports to define discouragement and covers special purpose credit programs. I wonder how long before a court challenge is filed.

Reuters: Trump administration terminated the CFPB’s lease

That’s the report from Douglas Gillison. According to the story, the administration did that in February, the same month in which the administration argued to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that its decisions concerning the CFPB were not final and so not reviewable. A decision that the Bureau won’t have an office sounds pretty […]

The CFPB’s current proposal to the court is inadequate.

As we noted on April Fool’s Day, the CFPB has proposed to the court a dramatic cut in the CFPB staffing. If only it were in fact an Apri Fool. American Banker’s Kate Berry has more here. Bloomberg’s Evan Weinberger has this paragraph in his story on the proposal: The cuts may still be “draconian,” […]

Trump administration proposes cutting CFPB staff by two-thirds

The proposal is here. It can’t go into effect until the preliminary injunction in the NTEU case is lifted. The administration claims the plan would “allow CFPB to continue meeting its statutory obligations while expanding on the reforms that have dramatically increased its efficiency and stewardship of taxpayer funds, in line with Presidential and Congressional […]

Paper on how consumer protection enforcement is going away

Alisher Juzgenbaye, a Northwestern JD/Ph.D student has written The Vanishing Enforcer: Consumer Protection in an Era of Dual Retrenchment. Here’s the abstract (the paper left out the third source of retrenchment: arbitration clauses): Recent developments, including reductions in the federal workforce, effective suspension of certain enforcement activities, and attempted centralization of independent agency rulemaking in the […]