On June 25, 2021, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision in Transunion v. Ramirez that provides further guidance on the thorny issue of class member standing.  The case involved a class of 8,185 individuals whose Transunion credit reports contained an alert incorrectly labeling them as potential terrorists because their first and last names matched names on a list maintained by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of terrorists, drug…

On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law Juneteenth National Independence Day Act.  The enactment of the new Federal holiday was an historic and welcome national event.  Yet, the legislation making June 19 a Federal holiday—observed this year by the Federal government on Friday, June 18—was passed swiftly and resulted in unintended disruption in the residential mortgage lending industry.  The holiday impacted the timing of certain requirements based on “business days” under…

On June 3, 2021, the Second Circuit ruled that the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) lacked legal standing to challenge the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC’s) fintech charter program.  The Second Circuit concluded that DFS lacked Article III standing because it failed to allege that the OCC’s decision caused it to suffer an actual or imminent injury in fact, and that DFS’s claims were constitutionally unripe for substantially the…

On June 1, 2021, the Ninth Circuit, in CFPB v. Seila Law LLC, No. 17-56324, granted Seila Law LLC’s motion to stay the mandate requiring its compliance with a civil investigative demand, while it petitions the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari on the question of whether the ratification of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) demand is an appropriate remedy for the separation-of-powers violation identified by the Supreme Court last year.  The…

On May 14, 2021, the Seventh Circuit United States Court of Appeals issued a decision reaffirming the rule from “a slew of cases” that, without injury, a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) claim alleging a bare procedural violation is not actionable.  The case—Markakos v. Medicredi, Inc., No. 20-2351—involved an allegation that the plaintiff received two letters from a debt collector that stated “inconsistent debt amounts” for certain medical services provided in 2017.  The first…

On May 11, 2021, in a 52-47 vote, the United States Senate passed a Congressional Review Act resolution to revoke the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) True Lender Rule.  The Congressional Review Act, passed in 1996, permits Congress to pass a joint resolution of disapproval that, with the President’s signature, can repeal a recent rule issued by a federal agency and prohibits the federal agency from promulgating a similar rule.  5 U.S.C.…

On May 3, 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent notification letters reminding the nation’s largest apartment landlords of federal protections in place to keep tenants in their homes and stop the spread of COVID-19.   The Notification Letter points to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) eviction moratorium for non-payment of rent (CDC Moratorium), which the CDC extended through June 30, 2021, as well as recent guidance…