Two days after President Obama’s January 4 recess appointments to the NLRB and the CFPB, DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (“OLC”) issued a 23-page opinion (not publicly released until January 12) on the legality of those appointments (the “Opinion”). Written against a backdrop of pro forma Senatorial sessions which began in 2007 in the Bush administration and continue during the current administration, the Opinion addresses two issues: (1) whether the President had authority to make recess appointments during the recess that included January 4, 2012, and (2) whether the pro forma sessions disabled him from making such recess appointments.… Continue Reading

We’ve taken a look at the CFPB’s just-issued Short-Term, Small-Dollar Lending Examination Procedures, the latest update to the CFPB’s larger Supervision and Examination Manual, and think there are several noteworthy highlights.

The procedures apply broadly to both closed-end and open-end loans that involve small dollar amounts, short-term repayment periods and lender access to the borrower’s deposit account for repayment.… Continue Reading

Prepared remarks delivered by Richard Cordray at the CFPB’s field hearing on payday lending today in Birmingham, Alabama identify some of the initial issues on which the CFPB will likely be focusing. Mr. Cordray indicated that the CFPB plans to “dig deep” on the topic of “repeated long-term use of payday loans” and described a situation reported by a consumer where “not enough is left to pay other bills” because “the payday lender takes the money directly from the consumer’s checking account.”… Continue Reading

The CFPB has released an updated version of its Company Portal Manual that describes the operation of the portal through which companies can view and respond to consumer complaints submitted through the CFPB’s complaint system (which the CFPB plans to expand beyond complaints about credit cards and mortgages to include complaints about other products such as deposit accounts.)… Continue Reading

The CFPB has issued an agenda and list of speakers for its field hearing on payday lending to be held tomorrow in Birmingham, Alabama. The hearing has been moved to a different location from the one initially announced because attendance is now anticipated to be larger than previously expected.… Continue Reading

Since this is my first post to the CFPB Monitor, I would like to begin with a few words of introduction. My name is John Socknat and I am one of the practice leaders of Ballard Spahr’s new Mortgage Banking Group. The Group’s attorneys have decades of experience in the mortgage industry—advising clients, handling transactions and due diligence, defending enforcement actions and providing a full range of legal services.… Continue Reading

Forbes.com has posted a Q&A-style interview with me headlined Arbitration Is Here to Stay and One Lawyer Says That Is Good for Consumers. In it, I discuss the U.S. Supreme Court’s major decision this week in CompuCredit Corp. v. Greenwood and its importance when read together with last year’s decision in ATT v.… Continue Reading

“The convening of periodic pro forma sessions in which no business is to be conducted does not have the legal effect of interrupting an intrasession recess otherwise long enough to qualify as a ‘Recess of the Senate’ under the Recess Appointments Clause.  In this context, the President therefore has discretion to conclude that the Senate is unavailable to perform its advise-and-consent function and to exercise his power to make recess appointments.” … Continue Reading