Consumer Crossroads: Where Financial Services and Litigation Intersect

Earlier today, the United States Supreme Court issued a two part decision in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Court first decided, in a 5-4 decision with Chief Justice Roberts authoring the Court's opinion, that the CFPB's leadership by a single Director removable only for inefficiency, neglect, or malfeasance violates the separation of powers doctrine. The Court next decided that the Director's unconstitutional removal protection is severable from the other provisions of Dodd-Frank that establish the CFPB and define its authority. The severability holding was also authored by Roberts, but drew a 7-2 split.

After much anticipation, Senate bill 2155—which rolls back major aspects of the Dodd-Frank law—was approved by Congress and was signed into law by President Trump.

This week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) adopted a final rule prohibiting a broad range of financial firms from using mandatory arbitration clauses to bar class action suits and received wide press coverage. The CFPB announced that this final rule would "restore the ability of groups of people to file or join group lawsuits." Some in the financial services industry potentially subject to the rule have already issued statements opposing and attacking it and asking that Congress use its statutory authority to reverse the CFPB's action.

Shortly after taking office, President Trump issued an Executive Order to establish a policy for regulating the United States financial system under seven "Core Principles," and to order a report from the United States Treasury that assesses financial markets. Last week, Treasury responded with its first 150 page report on the current state of the financial system that outlines proposed regulatory changes. Treasury points the finger at the Obama administration’s 2010 enactment of Dodd-Frank for imposing regulatory requirements insufficiently tailored or coordinated among agencies, unrelated to addressing the problems leading to the great recession, and applied in an overly prescriptive manner. In no uncertain terms, the report concludes that the scope and excess costs imposed by Dodd-Frank have resulted in a slower rate of growth in the financial markets. Unsurprisingly, Treasury’s regulatory recommendations coincide with Congress’ current legislative effort at replacing Dodd-Frank with the Financial Choice Act.

On Thursday, as we anticipated in a previous blog post, the House of Representatives voted along party lines to pass the Financial CHOICE ACT ("FCA"), which would repeal Dodd-Frank and strip the CFPB of its authority.

On May 4, 2017, the House Financial Services Committee passed HR 10, the Financial CHOICE ACT ("FCA") by a 34-26 vote, with all proposed Democratic redlines rejected. The FCA is expected to go to a full House vote as early as this week.