On September 20, 13 states and Washington, D.C. joined Colorado in its appeal asking the Tenth Circuit to uphold a state law imposing more restrictive interest rate caps on loans from out-of-state banks to residents, arguing...more
On May 21, the Massachusetts Attorney General (AG) released an Assurance of Discontinuance against a lender for allegedly violating the state’s Consumer Protection Act (CPA) provision on unfair and deceptive acts and...more
On February 1, 2024, a New York trial court held that the amount of a loan, and not the amount actually advanced to the borrower, is the relevant measurement to determine if New York’s criminal usury statute applies....more
California Corporations Code Section 25118(b) provides an exemption from the state's usury limitations for loans. The exemption is subject to several conditions. One condition is the existence of either a preexisting...more
Late last month, Councilmember Kenyan R. McDuffie introduced B 25-0609, entitled the Protecting Affordable Loans Amendment Act of 2023, that proposes to opt the District of Columbia out of sections 521-523 of the Depository...more
A California state court recently denied a preliminary injunction sought by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (the DFPI) in its long-running litigation against Opportunity Financial (OppFi)...more
Every day, attorneys act as advisors to parties negotiating and drafting contracts. Among those terms often left to the lawyers are choice-of-law provisions. Which state’s law governs a dispute, in theory, should not...more
By: Jeffrey M. Haber In our last article (here), we examined a choice-of-law provision that, if applied, would violate New York public policy concerning usurious loans. In that case, Virginia law, which does not prohibit...more
On May 25, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in a two-to-one split decision, held that an exemption to California’s usury laws for certain “aggregate” loan amounts applies only to indebtedness of a single...more
In Soaring Pine Capital Real Estate & Debt Fund II, LLC v. Park Street Group Realty Services, LLC, the Michigan Supreme Court considered whether a court may enforce a usury savings clause in a mortgage agreement. A usury...more
In its April 2023 Opposition to the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) motion for preliminary injunction, Opportunity Financial, LLC (OppFi) presents a spirited riposte, drilling down into the...more
As discussed here, in April 2023, Colorado introduced HB 1229 that proposed to limit certain charges on consumer loans and simultaneously opt Colorado out of sections 521-523 of the Depository Institutions Deregulation and...more
On May 10, SoLo Funds, Inc. (Solo), one of the largest community lending platforms in the United States, entered into a settlement with the District of Columbia attorney general (OAG). The settlement resolves claims that the...more
On June 1, 2022, plaintiff Kristen Michael filed a class action lawsuit against FinTech lender Opportunity Financial, LLC (“OppFi”) on behalf of herself and a putative class alleging, inter alia, that OppFi loans money at an...more
On March 23, 2021, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed into law Senate Bill 1792, enacting the Predatory Loan Prevention Act (PLPA) and capping interest at an “all-in” 36% APR (similar to the Military Lending Act’s MAPR) for...more
This month, a Florida appellate court held that a merchant cash advance (MCA) purchase and sale agreement was not a “disguised loan” and, therefore, was not subject to Florida’s criminal usury statute. MCA purchase and sale...more
On June 9, 2020, the Colorado District Court issued an order stating that federal interest rate exportation authority under Section 27 of the Federal Depository Insurance Act does not extend to non-bank entities that purchase...more
There were significant developments in 2019 as courts continued to issue important decisions in this space and significant legislation impacting the residential mortgage-backed securities (“RMBS”) market came into effect. A...more
On December 30, 2019, the California Department of Business Oversight (DBO) announced two actions regarding companies offering unregulated, point-of-sale financing to California residents. In the first action, the DBO...more
A group of small businesses and their individual owners have filed a putative class action lawsuit in a New York federal district court against online lender Kabbage, Inc. that alleges Kabbage engaged in a “rent-a-charter”...more
On August 6, 2019, the New York Department of Financial Services Superintendent Linda A. Lacewell announced that the DFS will lead a multistate investigation into the payroll advance industry and allegations of unlawful...more
Our Financial Services & Products Group delves into why a little-noticed California Supreme Court ruling could cause providers of financial consumer products in California serious headaches. - Can the interest rate render...more
We have blogged twice about the conclusion in RD Legal Funding that Title X of Dodd-Frank is unconstitutional because it provides that the sole director of the CFPB can be removed only for cause. ...more
So a plaintiff obtains a default judgment against a defendant on a promissory note case. Defendant fails to appear or defend. ...more
RD Legal Funding, LLC is seeking to dismiss the lawsuit filed against it, two of its affiliates, and their individual principal in February 2017 by the CFPB and the New York Attorney General in a NY federal district court...more