On April 7, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a Proposed Rule that would postpone the effective date of the Debt Collection Final Rules, Part 1 and Part 2, by 60 days, from Nov. 30, 2021, to Jan. 29, 2022.
Posts published in “Compliance Management”
The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act can no longer apply to devices that do not “us[e] a random or sequential number generator,” according to an April 1 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court.
On March 15, the California Office of the Attorney General announced that additional regulations relating to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) had been approved, effective immediately.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently vacated a trial court’s summary judgment in favor of a debt collector and ordered dismissal for lack of Article III standing.
The State of Florida, like many states, maintains a robust workers’ compensation statute geared toward insulating employees injured on the job from associated medical services. Now, lawsuits continue to be filed against debt collectors, hospitals and other medical providers alleging that under a novel interpretation of Florida’s workers’ compensation law, it is unlawful to attempt to collect medical debt arising from work-related injuries directly from consumers.
Last year, the CFPB provided some answers to the question: What is abusive conduct? For 10 years, industry waited on a policy statement regarding the framework that the CFPB would use in enforcement related to the catch-all category of “abusiveness” only to have the CFPB rescind the policy statement citing that it intended to “exercise its supervisory and enforcement authority consistent with the full scope of its statutory authority under the Dodd-Frank Act.”
On March 2, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam signed into law the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act. House Bill 2307 was introduced Jan. 20, 2021, and a substitute was passed in the House just nine days later. Its companion, Senate Bill 1392, followed a similar trajectory and on Feb. 19, each chamber concurred in the other’s substitute. The Act will become effective Jan. 1, 2023.
In 2006 the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe designated each Jan. 28 as Data Protection Day, known outside of Europe as Data Privacy Day. It marks the day in 1981 that Convention 108 of the Council of Europe became open for signature.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau increased the maximum civil penalty it can impose within its jurisdiction after Jan. 15, 2021. The increases are required by federal law, which requires agencies to adjust for inflation each civil monetary penalty within an agency’s jurisdiction by Jan. 15.
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 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: