Thomas Burke

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On April 19, one day before the release of a highly critical performance audit by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Department of Education (ED) announced a series of actions it is taking to “address[] historical failures in the administration of the federal student loan programs.”  The actions are directed at income-driven repayment (IDR) plans,…

The CFPB has filed a new lawsuit against TransUnion, two of its subsidiaries (TransUnion Interactive, Inc. (TUI) and TransUnion, LLC (TULLC)), and a former TUI executive alleging that the defendants violated the CFPB’s 2017 consent order with the corporate defendants.

The consent order settled the CFPB’s claims that TransUnion had engaged in deceptive marketing of…

The CFPB has entered into a consent order with Edfinancial Services, a student loan servicer, to settle the Bureau’s allegations that Edfinancial engaged in deceptive acts and practices in violation of the CFPA UDAAP prohibition.  The consent order requires Edfinancial to pay a $1 million civil money penalty.

According to the Bureau’s findings set forth…

The first enforcement action filed by the CFPB under the Biden Administration was a lawsuit filed in a Virginia federal district court jointly with the Attorneys General of Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York against Libre by Nexus, Inc. (Libre).  (Also named as defendants are  Libre’s parent company and three individual owners of the parent company.) …

In CFPB v. National Collegiate Master Student Loan Trust et al., the district court rejected the Trusts’ arguments that they were not “covered persons” under the CFPA and that because the enforcement action was filed by an unconstitutionally structured CFPB, it was void when filed and could not stop the statute of limitations from…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled last week in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Navient Corp. that the PA Attorney General could bring a parallel enforcement action against Navient, a servicer of federal student loans, under the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) even though the CFPB had previously filed a lawsuit against…

The Connecticut federal district court has ruled in Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency v. Perez that demands by the Connecticut Department of Banking (DOB) to the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) for federal student loan documents are preempted by federal law.  PHEAA was represented by Ballard Spahr.

PHEAA services federal student loans made by…

Earlier this week, Governor Andrew Cuomo again advanced controversial legislation that would establish a state licensing regime for student loan servicers.  The proposal, which is packaged as Part L of the governor’s proposed Transportation, Economic Development and Environmental Conservation Bill for fiscal year 2020, would require companies that service student loans held by New Yorkers…

On Monday, January 8, 2018, the United States Department of Justice weighed in with a Statement of Interest under 28 U.S.C. § 517 in a pending state-court action (No. 1784CV02682) brought by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts against the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA). The Commonwealth alleges that PHEAA violated state and federal consumer protection…