Each week, Crowell & Moring’s State Attorneys General team highlights significant actions that State AG’s have taken. Here are this week’s updates.
- On October 22, New Jersey Attorney General Grewal sued Navient Corp. and Navient Solutions LLC, a student loan servicer, alleging that the company engaged in deceptive conduct and unconscionable commercial practices as well as made misrepresentations when it was servicing New Jersey consumers’ student loans. The company allegedly steered borrowers into forbearance instead of income-driven repayment plans that would have been better suited to their financial situation, failed to tell borrowers about recertification eligibility deadlines for income-driven repayment plans, convinced borrowers to take out private student loans with a cosigner then made it very hard to obtain a cosigner release, and misled borrowers about the extent of their delinquency.
- On October 22, Michigan Attorney General Nessel signed an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance with Inspiring Clothing, which allegedly violated the Michigan Consumer Protection Act by failing to fulfill online orders for screen-printed t-shirts, which totaled about $38,000 in purchases, and allegedly advertised that sales would be donated to charitable causes but did not actually donate to these causes. Under the AVC, Inspiring Clothing must pay $1,000 to the Attorney General’s Office, stop operating for a year, and make a $100 payment to each additional customer who comes forward with proof that their order was not fulfilled or refunded, as well as a $100 payment to the Attorney General’s Office.
- On October 22, New York Attorney General James announced an agreement with Bell Mechanical Contractor which requires the company to pay $200,000 in restitution for falsely claiming to meet state diversity requirements in order to obtain a $1.2 billion Rochester Schools Modernization Program contract. The company has also committed to extensive long-term compliance, remediation, and training requirements.