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Having stood up and promoted the whistleblower program at the CFPB, it appears that Richard Cordray may now be taking similar steps at Federal Student Aid (“FSA”).  On November 10, the Department of Education (“ED”) and FSA issued a bulletin inviting whistleblowers to provide information about potential violations of the Higher Education Act (“HEA”) and its implementing regulations. … Continue Reading

In their June 2021 request for information regarding financial institutions’ use of artificial intelligence (AI), including machine learning, the CFPB and federal banking regulators flagged fair lending concerns as one of the risks arising from the growing use of AI by financial institutions.

Last week, in an apparent effort to increase its scrutiny of machine learning models and those that use alternative data, the CFPB published a blog post titled “CFPB Calls Tech Workers to Action,” in which it made a direct appeal to “engineers, data scientists and others who have detailed knowledge of the algorithms and technologies used by companies and who know of potential discrimination or other misconduct within the CFPB’s authority to report it to us.”… Continue Reading

At the end of last week, the CFPB announced that it was taking three steps consisting of implementing an advisory opinion program, updating its responsible business conduct bulletin, and proposing an award program for whistleblowers.

Advisory program.  Despite objections from Democratic Senators, the Bureau announced that it is implementing an advisory opinion program that will allow companies to submit requests for an advisory opinion to the Bureau via its website. … Continue Reading

In a unanimous ruling on February 21, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the definition of a whistleblower under the Dodd-Frank Act.  This new definition limits the protections available to employees reporting alleged violations of securities law, and may result in more employees going directly to the SEC, rather than relying solely on internal processes.… Continue Reading

A former CFPB examiner has written U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions claiming that CFPB officials falsified examination reports in connection with a CFPB examination of ACE Cash Express that led to the CFPB extracting $10 million of restitution and penalties from ACE.  At the time the CFPB forced ACE to enter into this consent order, even in the absence of any allegations of fraud on the part of the CFPB, we sharply criticized the CFPB for its treatment of ACE.… Continue Reading

Key members of the CFPB’s enforcement, regulatory and supervision offices spoke yesterday at PLI’s 20th Annual Consumer Financial Services Institute in Chicago. As was the case during the New York City version which took place on April 6, the session addressed recent developments and upcoming initiatives at the CFPB, and took the form of a Q&A between the moderator and a panel of practitioners and CFPB personnel.… Continue Reading

Chris’ post about the CFPB’s press release and bulletin encouraging “whistleblowers” to report to the CFPB potential violations of federal consumer financial laws is a reminder to banks and other companies to ensure that they have in place appropriate internal reporting procedures sufficient to encourage employees to use them rather than to report directly to the CFPB.… Continue Reading

On December 15, 2011, the CFPB published a press release and a bulletin encouraging “whistleblowers” to either e-mail or call the Bureau with information about “potential violations of federal consumer financial laws.” The announcement itself is not much of a surprise, since section 1057 of Dodd-Frank creates protections for persons who report, or refuse to participate in, violations of the federal consumer financial protection laws administered by the CFPB. … Continue Reading