May 26, 2023 By: Stephanie Shea The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act of 2018 amended TILA to require the CFPB to issue rulemaking addressing Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) loans. Specifically, the Act required the CFPB to apply TILA’s ability-to-repay (ATR) requirements to PACE loans and to apply TILA’s civil liability provisions to a PACE lender’s violation of those ATR requirements ...
On October 7, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) took steps to clarify its interpretation of how settlement service providers may comply with the “no kickback” and “unearned fee” provisions of Section 8 of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) by promulgating a new set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). The FAQs provided several concrete examples to shed light on what activities are allowed under those provisions ...
September 6, 2022 By: Michael Flynn* Continuing a recent trend, the CFPB has asserted that its oversight authority regarding unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices (UDAAP) to assert that certain digital marketers, including what it refers to as “Big Tech,” face potential UDAAP liability and oversight from the CFPB ...
October 12, 2022 By: Michael Flynn On September 27, 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a Request for Information Regarding Mortgage Refinances and Forbearances. The Request indicates that the CFPB is considering making the COVID emergency relief foreclosure/loss mitigation requirements a permanent requirement for mortgage lenders and servicers when dealing with temporarily distressed borrowers ...
February 8, 2023 By: Michael Flynn On February 1, the CFPB issued a proposed rule to cut the “safe harbor” amount that banks and credit card companies can charge for late fees. If finalized, the proposed rule would reduce the maximum safe harbor limit for credit card late fees to $8. The current safe harbor limits are $30 for a first missed payment and $41 dollars for each additional missed payment, indexed to inflation. The $8 limit would not be indexed to inflation ...
January 10, 2023 By: Michael Flynn The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget has released the Fall 2022 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (Agenda) reports on the actions administrative agencies plan to issue in the near and long term. Included is the CFPB’s regulatory agenda for 2023. The CFPB agenda may be found HERE ...
As a part of Federal agencies’ issuance of their semi-annual Spring 2023 Regulatory Agenda, the CFPB has published its Spring 2023 Agency Rule List (“2023 List”). In that List, the CFPB has set forth the status of its present rulemaking activities and its plans for such activities in the next 6 months ...
On August, 18, 2020, the CFPB issued a new proposed rule to create a new category of “seasoned qualified mortgages” (Seasoned QMs) that would receive the safe harbor conclusive presumption of meeting the Ability to Repay standard. The proposed rule would allow certain loans that meet specified criteria and are held in portfolio by the lender for three years to qualify as QMs ...
July 20, 2022 By: Michael Flynn* Amidst its increased activity in many different areas, the CFPB recently focused on credit reporting responsibilities under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by issuing an advisory opinion. The CFPB highlighted and set out some specific key points regarding credit reporting responsibilities and prohibitions, and offered a reminder about criminal liability under various provisions in the FCRA ...
March 31, 2022 By: Michael Flynn On March 16, 2022, the CFPB announced it will expand the scope of its enforcement activities regarding discrimination beyond the specific areas covered by ECOA, by applying the UDAAP unfair practices standard to discriminatory practices in all consumers financial segments ...
March 31, 2022 By: Michael Flynn In a March 28 speech, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra announced that the CFPB intends to enforce aggressively against large financial institutions that are repeat offenders, and will ask other federal regulators to take a similar approach. This will include utilizing stronger sanctions, even up to banning business practices, forcing divestiture of business lines, and working with state regulatory agencies to obtain license revocations where appropriate ...
April 27, 2022 By: Michael Flynn On April 25, the CFPB announced that it is invoking an aspect of its oversight authority to enable it to supervise and examine certain nonbank lenders when it determines the company’s activities and products pose a risk to consumers. The announcement highlights the CFPB’s intent to more closely supervise at least some FinTech companies and other nonbank consumer financial services providers, comparable to its supervision of banks ...
On June 1, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau along with Federal Reserve, OCC, FDIC, NCUA and FHFA (collectively, the “Agencies”) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on rules to implement quality control standards for automated valuation models (AVMs) used by residential mortgage originators and secondary market issuers in determining the collateral worth of a mortgage loan that is secured by a consumer’s principal dwelling ...
October 20, 2022 By: Gwenneth O’Hara and Samir Hafez On September 21, 2022 the California Energy Commission (CEC) issued its draft report of the Lithium Valley Commission, which includes 44 recommendations concerning the opportunities and challenges associated with the expansion of geothermal energy production and lithium extraction in the Salton Sea region ...
March 28, 2023 By: Nicolette A. Cohen[1] On September 29, 2022, the California Court of Appeal First Appellate District, in Honchariw v. FJM Private Mortgage Fund, LLC, held a private lender’s imposition of late charges and default interest constituted an unlawful penalty in contravention of the public policy set forth in California Civil Code Section 1671, reversing the trial court’s finding ...
By: Gwenneth O’Hara, Nora Sheriff, Jonathan Kendrick, and Lillian Rafii After extensive collaboration with other state agencies and nearly a year’s worth of public workshops on scoping plan topics and modeling, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) released its Draft 2022 Scoping Plan Update (Draft Scoping Plan) on May 10, 2022 ...
July 21, 2022 By: John Epperson and Peter McGaw California has a long history of enacting laws regulating plastic packaging, dating back to the Rigid Plastic Packaging Container law in 1991, a law many manufacturers only learn about when they receive a notice from the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (“CalRecycle”) ...
By: John Epperson and Peter McGaw A ban on the sale of nondurable food packaging in California containing PFAS chemicals goes into effect on January 1, 2023, which is now less than four months away. The ban was contained in Assembly Bill 1200, which was enacted in October 2021, along with unrelated new requirements for disclosure of chemicals in cookware ...
February 16, 2023 By: Kathryn B. Fox and Charles Whitman Once again, California employers can require workers to sign arbitration agreements as a condition of employment. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Viking River Cruises v. Moriana and in a reversal of its own prior decision, a divided three-judge Ninth Circuit panel found that AB 51 is preempted by federal law. Chamber of Commerce of the U.S., et al. v. Bonta, et al., No. 20-15291 (9th Cir. Feb. 15, 2023) ...
July 21, 2023 By: Robert S. Cooper The Adolph v. Uber Ruling Thwarts The U.S. Supreme Court’s Landmark Viking Decision In a widely anticipated but unsurprising ruling, the California Supreme Court on July 17, 2023 issued its decision in Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc., (S274671) weighing in on the United States Supreme Court’s (“SCOTUS”) recent landmark decision in Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana, (2022) 596 U.S. __, [142 S. Ct 1906] (Viking) ...
In the recent case of 'Ixchel Pharma v. Biogen', the Ninth Circuit asked the California Supreme Court to resolve two questions “because of their significance for business torts in California.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit—which includes California—occasionally encounters questions of California law that it cannot resolve ...
