Litigation

Credit Acceptance Corp., a major name in subprime auto finance, is facing a legal challenge over its lending practices. Some lawyers and analysts say the company's battle with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has broader implications for the rest of the industry.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the state attorney general claim Credit Acceptance Corp., an indirect auto lender, deceived thousands of borrowers by failing to disclose and include finance charges in calculating the cost of a car loan.

The Mississippi bank would take a big hit to capital and income but avoid the risk of a bigger payout from a guilty verdict in litigation against banks that did business with Allen Stanford's disgraced financial empire.

Among U.S. financial regulators, Chopra is the one who bankers fear the most. His agency is expected to battle with the financial industry in 2023 on topics ranging from discrimination to fees and the bureau's funding mechanism.

Many experts think the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding through the Federal Reserve could be the fatal flaw in the Dodd-Frank Act that created the agency, but differentiating the CFPB's structure from others may be tricky.

The Wyoming-based digital-asset bank wants more information about why a decision on its two-year-old application for a master account has been delayed. But U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl ruled that the central bank won't have to turn over everything Custodia sought.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is investigating how the Jack Dorsey-led company handles fraud on its person-to-person payments app. After the bureau accused Block of dragging its feet, a federal magistrate judge gave the company a Jan. 5 deadline.

Early next year the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals is slated to consider whether certain loans are actually securities.

The case involved a customer who was charged $100,000 in legal fees when he tried to pay off a commercial mortgage early. After the borrower waged a nearly decadelong legal fight, a Florida court ordered the bank to reimburse a portion of the fees.

The ruling means that a lower court's pro-consumer decision cannot be used as a precedent in other litigation. Consumer advocates had hoped the case would make it more difficult for debt buyers in North Carolina to file a large volume of lawsuits, which often lead to default judgments against borrowers.

The Canadian-owned bank vowed to appeal the large verdict, which illustrated the risks that banks take on when they shoulder the liabilities of companies they acquire.

Following the verdict, the student-loan servicer could potentially owe Louis Beryl more than $4.4 million in severance money. Navient fired Beryl less than three months after acquiring Earnest, the student loan refinancing company that he co-founded.

Legal experts are gaming out the various options for the CFPB after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled on Oct. 19 that the bureau's funding is unconstitutional.

Custodia's lawsuit with the Federal Reserve over master account access is poised to advance to trial. Regardless of the outcome, the case will be consequential.

The agreement, which still needs court approval, should help what remains of the online small-business lender as it moves through bankruptcy proceedings. After Kabbage emerged as a major Paycheck Protection Program lender, some of its key assets were sold to American Express.

An appeals court ruling last week found that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding structure violates the Constitution, but another court filing shows how the agency might fight back.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit overturned a lower court's ruling, declaring the agency's funding structure and its 2017 payday lending rule invalid.

When local prosecutors in Los Angeles investigated fake accounts at the San Francisco bank, they were hampered by a provision of state law that prevented them from issuing subpoenas before filing suit. That problem has been remedied under legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The class-action lawsuit was brought on behalf of mortgage borrowers who were allegedly placed into forbearance during the early days of the pandemic without their consent.

A federal judge found last year that a credit reporting dispute did not have to be investigated because the consumer's complaint was frivolous. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission argue that the decision undermines a key purpose of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.