Litigation

At a court hearing on Monday, lawyers for the Trump administration said statutorily required work is being done by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, while the union claimed the government is trying to shut the agency down.

The Justice Department said in a legal brief that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will continue to exist, but said instead that the agency will have fewer employees and a reduced budget under the Trump administration.

Four companies are fighting CFPB enforcement actions by claiming the agency cannot be funded by the Federal Reserve, which has not been profitable since 2022. The consumer bureau calls the new legal theory "meritless."

The high court's much-anticipated ruling gives federal courts — rather than executive agencies — the power to interpret ambiguous statutes. The decision is expected to facilitate an increase in litigation over banking regulations.

A Minnesota trade group and its co-plaintiff, Lake Central Bank, signaled that they plan to appeal a district court's dismissal of their lawsuit against the FDIC. The case involves the agency's guidance on nonsufficient funds fees.

A federal judge in Texas is locked in a back-and-forth with an appeals court over whether the industry's challenge to a cap on credit card late fees should be moved to Washington, D.C.

The Supreme Court issued an opinion Thursday morning that was unequivocal in its view that Congress is constitutionally empowered to fund agencies with open-ended and indirect funding mechanisms, overruling a 5th Circuit opinion from 2022 that found that executive branches must be subject to direct Congressional appropriations.

Many legal experts think the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in a case challenging its funding. Such a ruling would unleash a flurry of litigation that has been on hold pending the outcome of the constitutional challenge.

A federal judge in Texas sided with bank trade groups, agreeing that bank regulators might have overstepped their authority in reforming parts of the Community Reinvestment Act.

Over 70 loans were allegedly sent to competitors by the independent mortgage banker, a suit filed by UWM alleges.

The Justice Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are suing a real estate developer over an alleged bait-and-switch land-sale scheme near Houston. The developer used TikTok and other social media sites to lure Hispanic immigrants into predatory loans, the government alleges.

The student loan servicer said that it's open to settling a high-stakes lawsuit filed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during the Obama administration. It recorded a $45 million charge and said that the range of reasonably possible losses is between $0 and $250 million.

Kevin Meyersburg, who is white, says in a lawsuit that the Wall Street investment bank terminated his employment and replaced him with a Black woman who is less qualified for the position. Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

A Texas judge dealt the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau a setback that has changed the bureau's calculus for furthering its near-term agenda. But an ambitious Supreme Court could also call all of the bureau's final rules into question.

Two bank trade groups have asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to relieve all banks from complying with its small-business lending rule until after the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether the bureau's funding is constitutional.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued only 20 enforcement actions in 2022, but some observers say the enforcement numbers belie the results that director Rohit Chopra is getting from other ways of holding companies accountable.

A federal appeals court ruled in favor of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, setting up a court split ahead of a highly anticipated Supreme Court hearing in October. The Fifth Circuit previously ruled that the agency's funding mechanism violates the Constitution's separation of powers doctrine.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has asked the high court to overrule a lower-court decision that threatens its funding structure. The justices didn't accept the case on Tuesday, but experts say it could still make the cut in the coming week.

The deal has a $10 million prefunding account that could purchase additional eligible receivables during a three-month period after closing.

Townstone Financial in Chicago had been accused of discriminating against certain consumers by trying to discourage them from applying for home loans. However, a judge ruled that federal law protects only actual applicants.