On Jan. 11 Washington State Sen. Reuven Carlyle introduced SB 5062, the Washington Privacy Act (WPA). Its predecessors, SB 6281 and SB 5376, failed to pass in 2020 and 2019, respectively.
The Federal Trade Commission announced on Jan. 7, a settlement (by way of an administrative complaint) with a California-based company that operates an advertising platform within mobile game applications.
Last week the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its report from the Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. It is just shy of 900 pages and includes some 100 recommendations that, if implemented, would broaden the CFPB’s regulatory oversight powers.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently held that property in which a debtor’s dependent son lived part-time with his father qualified for the so-called homestead exemption contained in section 522(d)(1) of the Bankruptcy Code, regardless of state law.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently held that the plain language of 15 U.S.C. 1692f(8), a provision of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) regulating what may be shown on an envelope when a debt collector communicates with a consumer by mail, does not include a “benign language” exception.
Managing against unforeseen risks can be a difficult task. But sometimes you can get a hint of potential trouble ahead. In the past few months there have been at least four cases that could cause substantial disruption to debt buyers, creditors and their service providers alike. Here they are:
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has prevailed against a challenge to its authority in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the wake of last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently announced a consent order against a subprime automobile finance company for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act resulting from systemic errors in data furnished to credit reporting agencies between January 2016 and August 2019.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently vacated a trial court’s order denying a debt collector’s motion to compel arbitration in a putative class action lawsuit filed by a consumer alleging violations of the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), and remanded the case to the lower court with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.
During what was an extraordinary and difficult year, there was an abundance of activity at the state and federal levels and a good deal of it was driven by the present COVID-19 pandemic. Here is my take on some of the most significant regulatory activities from the past year in consumer debt collection that will continue to impact both consumers and creditors in the years to come.
The year 2020 in bankruptcy law started with an eye on increasing the ability of small businesses to utilize the Chapter 11 process in a more efficient and less expensive way, which lead to a record number of commercial filings, a reduction in consumer filings, and a test of the bankruptcy system.
On the heels of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) going into effect in 2018, and passage of the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA), 2019 proved to be a banner year for introduction of state consumer data privacy legislation.