Category Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

DC Circuit Orders PHH to Respond to CFPB’s Petition for Rehearning En Banc, Invites Solicitor General to Comment

So reports my fellow blogger Deepak Gupta on Twitter.  This is in the PHH case in which the panel ruled that the CFPB was unconstitutional unless the President could fire the Bureau's director without cause.  The response is due in early December, well before the shift in administrations. 

Debt Collection Journalist Jake Halpern Asks in the Times: Will Guys With Guns Replace the Agency Elizabeth Warren Created?

Here (behind paywall).  Excerpt: Brandon Wilson is a former armed robber who, after serving roughly a decade in prison, reinvented himself as a successful debt broker. * * * * * * [Wilson]  explained it: “Part of the package you get of being my business associate or my friend is that I’m gonna protect you […]

Could a President Trump Fire CFPB Director Cordray on Day One Even While the PHH Suit is Pending?

Aditya Bamzai of Virginia argues that he could here.  Excerpt: [The] premise [that the president has to let the litigation runs its course] appears to rest on two mistaken assumptions: (1) that the President cannot exercise his removal authority absent an Article III judgment authorizing such removal, especially when a pending case may address the very […]

Will the CFPB Issue the Arbitration Rule Soon?

That's one of the questions addressed by the Wall Street Journal in an article headlined Financial Regulators Scramble to Complete Postcrisis Rules. (behind paywall). Excerpt: “This type of ’midnight rulemaking’ is neither conducive to sound policy nor consistent with principles of democratic accountability,” Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told […]

LA Times’s David Lazarus on the Threat the CFPB Faces in December

by Jeff Sovern The column is titled The future isn't bright for highly successful consumer watchdog. Excerpt: A stopgap government funding bill passed in September will expire Dec. 9. It’s widely expected that conservative members of Congress will include language in follow-up funding legislation that would change how the bureau operates and the scope of its […]

CFPB Petitions DC Circuit for Rehearing En Banc of PHH Case Holding CFPB Structure Unconstitutional

PHH was the case that held that the CFPB's structure is unconstitutional and that the remedy was to provide that the CFPB director could be fired without cause.   The petition is here.  It describes that case as "what may be the most important separation-of-powers case in a generation." National Law Journal coverage (behind paywall) here.  […]

Trump’s Transition Team: Dismantle Dodd-Frank

The statement is here.  Excerpt: * * * Federal policy should focus on free enterprise, while protecting consumers by policing markets for force and fraud.  Both Wall Street and Washington should be held accountable.  Following the financial crisis, Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Act, a sprawling and complex piece of legislation that has unleashed hundreds of […]

Bloomberg BNA: Trump Presidency Creates Uncertainty for Arbitration Rules

Here. The entire article is worth reading, but I've pasted in an excerpt below.  (HT: Gregory Gauthier) “Trump and his businesses seem to have been big proponents of arbitration, using it as a way of getting disputes out of courts and therefore out of the public eye,” defense attorney Liz Kramer told Bloomberg BNA. Kramer, of Stinson […]

American Banker: CFPB’s Precarious Future Under Trump

Here (free content, I think). Excerpt: While Republican lawmakers are likely to focus on efforts to replace the agency's single director with a bipartisan five-member commission, as well as subject it to the Congressional appropriations process, Trump may seek to take more immediate action once he takes office in January. Some said he could either pressure […]

Law360: House GOP To Drive Trump’s Banking Policies

Here (behind paywall).  Excerpt: While his lack of clarity has left many in the financial services industry wondering what Trump’s win will mean, the presence of Pence in the No. 2 spot is likely to provide a good clue. * * * “He’s going to be in an enormously powerful position to influence policy,” Lynyak […]