The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau made news this year when it announced that it considered discrimination to be illegal as an "unfair" practice, including in situations where fair lending laws do not apply. In March,...more
If you thought that a finance company's obligation to automatically credit a consumer's account for prorated fees for GAP or any other voluntary protection product depended on the product's contract or even the applicable...more
Every creditor with subprime customers has experienced—on one occasion or another, we expect—someone judging it unfavorably for allegedly taking advantage of consumers by charging higher interest rates. That "tsk-tsk"...more
Most creditors find 100% regulatory compliance to be an elusive goal, and auto-secured creditors are no exception. My clients often say to me, "Gee, I would have fixed that compliance gap if I had only known it was there!"...more
Part Three: Risk Reward Will Always be Part of the Subprime Future -
We resume our conversation where we left off on Part Two with a question citing the Taskforce report with recommendations for improved financial...more
Every day, financing providers offer financing to customers. Sometimes they encourage a customer to apply for credit with the dealer by saying that they can offer the customer the best financing deal. Such a claim got a Ford...more
[co-author: John Ropiequet]
The fair lending cases filed by Miami against four major mortgage lenders, reported in several previous Annual Surveys, came to a sudden, anticlimactic end when the city voluntarily dismissed...more
4/28/2021
/ Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Disparate Impact ,
Disparate Treatment ,
ECOA ,
Fair Housing Act (FHA) ,
Fair Lending ,
HUD ,
Mortgage Lenders ,
Mortgages ,
Proximate Cause ,
Wells Fargo
Just a little over a year ago, I was sworn in as a member of the newly created Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law, along with my four fellow taskforce members. The taskforce was the brainchild of Consumer Financial...more
This article is the second of an exclusive three-part series interview with Jean Noonan, member of the CFPB Taskforce on Federal Consumer Law. Part One can be found in the March issue of Texas Dealer.
We resume our...more
This article is the first of an exclusive three-part series interview with Jean Noonan, member of the CFPB Taskforce on Federal Consumer Law.
In January 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) appointed a...more
We have looked at the Federal Trade Commission's sweeping case against Bronx Honda and its general manager. Was this case part of a concerted effort by the FTC to ferret out illegal credit discrimination by automobile...more
The Federal Trade Commission made a big splash in late May when it announced a whopping $1.5 million settlement with Liberty Chevrolet, d/b/a Bronx Honda, and its general manager, Carlo Fittanto. Bronx Honda and Fittanto were...more
[co-author: John L. Ropiequet]
The fair lending cases filed by Miami against large mortgage lenders in 2013, in which the city sought to recover lost property tax revenues and increased municipal expenses allegedly caused...more
6/3/2020
/ Amended Complaints ,
Banks ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Fair Housing Act (FHA) ,
Fair Lending ,
Financial Services Industry ,
HUD ,
Miami ,
Mortgage Lenders ,
Mortgages ,
National Origin Discrimination ,
Race Discrimination ,
Settlement Agreements ,
Wells Fargo
The novel coronavirus upended American lives, changing how we work, how we socialize, how we shop, and - for millions of us - whether we are still employed. For many creditors, it also changed patterns of consumer default. In...more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has issued a request for information (RFI) to assist the Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law with recommendations on harmonizing, modernizing, and generally improving...more
The past year saw the lower courts wrestle with the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bank of America Corp. v. City of Miami that, like the Court’s previous ruling in Texas Department of Community Affairs v....more
6/18/2019
/ Bank of America v Miami ,
Banks ,
Burden of Proof ,
Causation ,
Discovery ,
Disparate Impact ,
Disparate Treatment ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Expert Testimony ,
Fair Housing Act (FHA) ,
Fair Lending ,
Fannie Mae ,
Foreclosure ,
HUD ,
Mortgage Lenders ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Municipalities ,
Pleading Standards ,
Property Tax ,
Property Valuation ,
Proximate Cause ,
Public Comment ,
Remand ,
Texas Dept of Housing v Inclusive Communities
Your company gets an irate call from a customer whose car you have just repossessed for non-payment. The caller is furious because he made a payment that was supposed to prevent a repossession. After you confirm the payment,...more
6/5/2019
/ Automotive Loans ,
Best Practices ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Consumer Lenders ,
Customers ,
Debt Collection ,
Employee Training ,
Mistake ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Process Improvement ,
Repossess ,
Required Communications ,
Risk Assessment ,
Risk Mitigation