Please check out the latest edition of our UDAAP Round-Up — a periodic review of federal activities regarding the prohibition on unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices (“UDAAPs”) in the consumer financial services space. In this edition, we cover notable policy, enforcement, and supervisory developments from October 2022 through March 2023
CFPB Takes Aim at Digital Marketing Providers with New Interpretive Rule
On August 10, 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) issued an interpretive rule clarifying its position that digital marketers providing consumer financial services companies with customer targeting and advertisement delivery services are subject to the Consumer Financial Protection Act as “service providers.” Critically, the rule takes the position that tech companies offering such marketing
US CFPB Says Hiding Negative Reviews Violates UDAAP Rules
On March 22, 2022, the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a compliance bulletin on “Unfair and Deceptive Acts or Practices That Impede Consumer Reviews.” The bulletin announced that the CFPB would view practices that discourage or hide consumer reviews as unfair or deceptive practices under Sections 1031 and 1036 of the Consumer Financial
CFPB Issues Revised Administrative Litigation Procedures, Signaling Possible Increase in In-House Adjudications
The upshot, for busy people:
- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) can sue companies in federal court or in its in-house administrative proceedings. Although the CFPB regularly announces settlements styled as administrative proceedings, it has rarely held administrative trials or other contested enforcement proceedings in that forum.
- On February 22, 2022, and without an accompanying press release, the CFPB published in the Federal Register a number of changes to its in-house adjudication procedures. Some changes are administrative—how to count days, etc. But others clarify and expand the powers Director Rohit Chopra has to shape proceedings, including to bifurcate remedial and liability determinations and to decide all dispositive motions.
- These procedural changes don’t alter any of the CFPB’s substantive rules. But these changes do signal that the agency may start bringing enforcement cases in-house, where Director Chopra will decide what does and does not violate the law.
US FTC Holds Its First Open Meeting of 2022: What Happened?
On January 20, 2022, the FTC continued its recent experiment in holding open meetings of its commissioners. The FTC did not vote on new initiatives; Chair Lina Khan is likely waiting for a third Democratic commissioner before pushing through her more controversial agenda. Public comments focused on two areas: possible anticompetitive conduct in the franchise
US FTC Succeeds in First Expanded Use of Gramm-Leach-Bliley Penalty Authority
Just into the new year, the FTC notched its first success in a creative theory to extend its monetary penalty authorities, which the Supreme Court trimmed back last year. In FTC v. RCG Advances, the FTC settled allegations that a small-business financing firm and its principals violated Section 521(a) of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Originally