AILA Members and Friends:
This summer, I’ve been speaking and writing on CFPB Rule making developments. For better or worse, the Bureau has been exceedingly active in its efforts.
Recent CFPB rulemaking or studies include:
- A new interpretive rule aimed at lenders to the Buy Now, Pay Later industry.
- A new registry to detect corporate repeat offenders of financial services laws.
- A continuing focus on military community complaints.
- A finalization of Regulation F applicable to debt collectors.
- Finalizing the Payday Lending Rule to take effect on March 30, 2025.
- A new report on negative equity lending in auto financing.
- A proposed rule to clarify that the “earned wage access product” is to be considered a loan.
And atop all of this activity, is the unpredictable consequences of last month’s U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimond and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce. These twin decisions overturned the 40-year precedent of Chevron USA Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council—the case that created a deferential review in favor of the regulator, commonly known as the “Chevron Doctrine.” While this may not seem so important to non-lawyers, the significance of overturning Chevron cannot be overstated.
In a nutshell, what the Court has done in Loper Bright Enterprises, is to return the review of an agency’s rulemaking to “independent judicial review” that does not defer to a federal agency’s determination of the reasonableness of the rulemaking. The import of this case goes far beyond the rulemaking by the CFPB as it applies to all agencies and bureaus of the federal government from the most prominent to the most obscure—a vast number of players affecting our everyday lives—think the IRS, the EPA, the FED, the FTC, the Consumer Products Safety Commission, the Centers for Disease Control—as well as the National Marine Fisheries Service.
My counsel for you is that if you have a child or grandchild considering law school, I’d encourage them to go and to specialize in regulatory law, as that part of the law is going to burgeon in the coming years!
Stay tuned.
Maury