Thomas Burke

Subscribe to Thomas Burke's Posts
Contact: Read more about Thomas Burke

On February 28, 2023, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in two separate cases challenging the Biden Administration’s authority to proceed with its plan to forgive approximately $400 billion in federal student loans.  In the first case, the Biden Administration seeks to vacate an injunction granted by a three-judge panel of the U.S.… Continue Reading

On December 12, 2022, the Supreme Court announced that it would grant a petition for certiorari as to the separate loan-forgiveness challenge pending before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and calendar the matter for argument in February 2023.

On December 1, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari to consider the standing of the plaintiffs who obtained an an injunction from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals that currently prevents the Biden Administration from enacting its plan to forgive approximately $400 billion in federal student loans. … Continue Reading

On December 1, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed an application by the Biden Administration to vacate an injunction entered by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals that currently prevents the administration from enacting its plan to forgive approximately $400 billion in federal student loans.  Justice Kavanagh—the designated Justice for certain emergency appeals from the Eighth Circuit—referred the Administration’s application to the full Court, which, on its own initiative, converted the application to a petition for writ of certiorari before judgment and granted the petition. … Continue Reading

Yesterday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit granted a request to enjoin the Biden Administration’s federal student loan forgiveness program pending resolution of an appeal filed by state attorneys general of six states (Missouri, Arkansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina), whose challenge to the loan forgiveness plan had been dismissed in October for lack of Article III standing. … Continue Reading

On November 10, 2022, a federal district court in the Northern District of Texas entered judgment in favor of two plaintiffs on an Administrative Procedure Act (APA) claim seeking vacatur of the Biden administration’s plan to forgive approximately $400 billion in federal student loans under the HEROES Act of 2003. The court, citing a rarely used provision in Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, converted the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction into a motion for summary judgment over the Biden administration’s objection, and then entered a final ruling on the merits that will (along with the still-pending administrative stay entered by the Eighth Circuit) prohibit the Biden administration from moving forward with its loan forgiveness plan—at least unless and until the administration obtains a stay and/or reversal of the court’s judgment in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which it has already sought.… Continue Reading

On the evening of Friday, October 21, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit put a halt—albeit a potentially temporary one—to the Biden Administration’s federal student loan forgiveness program, which had been scheduled to result in loan cancellation for at least some student borrowers only two days later, on October 23.… Continue Reading

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, which are used by student borrowers on over half of the more than $1 trillion in outstanding federal student Direct Loans. … Continue Reading

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 credit-related products. … Continue Reading

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 in the consent order (which Edfinancial neither admits nor denies), Edfinancial made various misrepresentations to borrowers with Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) loans about their eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). … Continue Reading

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.) … Continue Reading