Everything You Want to Know About the CFPB as Things Stand Today and Lots More - Part 1
Release Date: 04/10/2025
Everything You Want to Know About the CFPB as Things Stand Today, and Lots More - Part 2
Consumer Finance Monitor
Our podcast show being released today is part 2 of a repurposed interactive webinar that we presented on March 24 featuring two of the leading journalists who cover the CFPB - Jon Hill from Law360 and Evan Weinberger from Bloomberg. Our show begins with Tom Burke, a Ballard Spahr consumer financial services litigator, describing in general terms the status of the 38 CFPB enforcement lawsuits that were pending when Rohit Chopra was terminated. The cases fall into four categories: (a) those which have already been voluntarily dismissed with prejudice by the CFPB; (b) those which the CFPB has...
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Everything You Want to Know About the CFPB as Things Stand Today and Lots More - Part 1
Consumer Finance Monitor
Our podcast show being released today is Part 1 of a repurposed interactive webinar that we presented on March 24, featuring two of the leading journalists who cover the CFPB - Jon Hill from Law360 and Evan Weinberger from Bloomberg. Our show began with Jon and Evan chronicling the initiatives beginning on February 3 by CFPB Acting Directors Scott Bessent, Russell Vought and DOGE to shut down or at least minimize the CFPB. These initiatives were met with two federal district court lawsuits (one in DC brought by the labor unions who represents CFPB employees who were terminated and the other...
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A Deep Dive Into Judge Jackson’s Preliminary Injunction Order Against CFPB Acting Director Vought
Consumer Finance Monitor
Our special podcast show today deals primarily with a 112-page opinion and 3-page order issued on March 28 by Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in a lawsuit brought, among others, by two labor unions representing CFPB employees against Acting Director Russell Vought. The complaint alleged that Acting Director Vought and others were in the process of dismantling the CFPB through various actions taken since Rohit Chopra was fired and replaced by Acting Director Scott Bessent and then Acting Director Russell Vought. This process included, among other...
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Prominent Journalist, David Dayen, Describes his Reporting on the Efforts of Trump 2.0 to Curb CFPB
Consumer Finance Monitor
Today’s podcast show features a discussion with David Dayen, executive editor of the American Prospect, which is an online magazine about ideas, politics, and power. He's the author of “Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud,” which was published in 2016. David has written and published about 10 or so articles in which he chronicles in great detail the apparent effort by the Trump Administration, acting through Scott Bessent and Russell Vought, to dismantle the CFPB by abruptly ordering a cessation of all activities and layoffs of...
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A Debate About The Need, If Any, For a Federal Charter for Non-Banks Engaged in the Payments Business
Consumer Finance Monitor
Our podcast show today features Professor Dan Awrey of Cornell Law School, and Matt Lambert, Deputy General Counsel of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (“CSBS”) who discuss the pros and cons of Congress enacting a statute which would require federal charter for non-banks engaged in the payments business. At present, such non-banks are generally required to be licensed by state departments of banking under money transmitter laws. On November 14 of last year, , Professor Awrey discussed his working paper “Money and Federalism” in which he advocates for the enactment of Federal...
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How to use the Restatement of Consumer Contracts: A Guide for Judges
Consumer Finance Monitor
Today’s podcast show features a discussion with Professor Gregory Klass of Georgetown University Law School about an article he co-authored with Professor Ian Ayres, entitled “How to Use the Restatement of Consumer Contracts: A Guide for Judges.” The article will be published this year in the Harvard Business Law Review (vol 15), and is available The abstract of the article states: “In the absence of major legislation or regulatory action, U.S. consumers will continue to look to courts and the common law for protection when businesses engage in unfair and deceptive contracting...
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Prof. Hal Scott Doubles Down on His Argument That CFPB is Unlawfully Funded Because of Combined Losses at Federal Reserve Banks
Consumer Finance Monitor
On June 6 of last year, Prof. Hal Scott of Harvard Law School was our podcast guest. On that occasion he delved into the thought-provoking question of whether the Supreme Court’s decision on May 16 in the landmark case of CFSA v. CFPB really hands the CFPB a winning outcome, or does the Court’s validation of the agency’s statutory funding structure simply open up another question - namely, whether the CFPB is legally permitted under Dodd-Frank to receive funds from the Federal Reserve even though the Federal Reserve Banks have lost money on a combined basis since September 2022....
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“Accidental Arbitration” -- A New Theory that Would Rein in Consumer Arbitration Clauses and the Scope of the FAA
Consumer Finance Monitor
Our special guest is David Horton, Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis, who has written a creative and thought-provoking article analyzing how courts should interpret certain key provisions that are frequently used in consumer arbitration agreements. and will be published in the Washington University Law Review later this year. Prof. Horton first contends that courts have misinterpreted the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) as requiring arbitration clauses to be construed broadly, which in many cases forces consumers to arbitrate disputes they never agreed to because the...
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The Patterns of Digital Deception
Consumer Finance Monitor
Our podcast show today features Gregory M. Dickinson, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Nebraska, who was previously a guest on our show on . Our 2023 episode was based on Professor Dickinson’s article titled “Privately Policing Dark Patterns”, 57 Ga. L. Rev. 1633 (2023). The show today focuses on Professor Dickinson’s more recent article, which builds on his 2023 article, titled “The Patterns of Digital Deception”, 65 B. C. L. Rev. 2457 (2024). The abstract to this article states: “Current consumer-protection debates focus on the powerful new data-analysis...
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Banking as a Service
Consumer Finance Monitor
Our podcast show today features Jason Mikula, publisher of Fintech Business Weekly; a newsletter going beyond the headlines to analyze the technology, regulatory and business model trends, driving the rapidly evolving financial services ecosystem at the intersection of traditional banking, payments, FinTech and crypto. We discuss his recently released book, titled “Banking as a Service: Opportunities, Challenges, and Risks of New Banking Business Models” (Kogan Page 2024). The publisher describes the book as follows: “This book provides a comprehensive look at banking-as-a-service...
info_outlineOur podcast show being released today is Part 1 of a repurposed interactive webinar that we presented on March 24, featuring two of the leading journalists who cover the CFPB - Jon Hill from Law360 and Evan Weinberger from Bloomberg.
Our show began with Jon and Evan chronicling the initiatives beginning on February 3 by CFPB Acting Directors Scott Bessent, Russell Vought and DOGE to shut down or at least minimize the CFPB. These initiatives were met with two federal district court lawsuits (one in DC brought by the labor unions who represents CFPB employees who were terminated and the other brought in Baltimore, MD by the CFPB and others) challenging one or more of these initiatives. Jon and Evan described the lawsuits in detail. While the Baltimore lawsuit was dismissed on the basis of lack of ripeness under the Administrative Procedure Act, Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued a TRO freezing the CFPB from terminating more CFPB employees through the end of March while she decides whether to enter a further injunction with respect to the CFPB’s initiatives.
Ballard Spahr partners, Rich Andreano and John Culhane, then gave an up-to-date status report on CFPB (a) final rules being challenged in litigation and/or eligible to be challenged under the Congressional Review Act; (b) final rules not being challenged in litigation which may be repealed or amended or whose effective or compliance dates may be extended under the Administrative Procedure Act; (c) proposed rules; and (d) non-rule written guidance. Rich and John paid particular attention to the following final rules:
1. The Small Business Loan Data Collection and Reporting Rule under Section 1071 of Dodd-Frank
2. The Non-bank enforcement order Registry Rule
3. The Fair Credit Reporting Act “Data Broker” Rule
4. The Residential Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Financing Rule
5. The Residential Mortgage Servicing Proposed Rule
6. Credit Card Penalty fees under Reg Z (Late Fee Rule)
7. Personal Financial Data Rights (Open Banking) Rule under Section 1033 of Dodd-Frank
8. Overdraft Lending Rule Applicable to very large financial institutions
9. Prohibition on creditors and consumer reporting agencies reporting medical debt under Reg V
Part 1 of our podcast concludes with Rich and John describing the fact that supervision and examination of banks and non-banks is apparently on hold.
This podcast show was hosted by Alan Kaplinsky, the former practice group leader for 25 years of the Consumer Financial Services Group and now Senior Counsel.