Court dismisses credit repair association’s suit against CFPB, FTC

Courts CFPB FTC Telemarketing Sales Rule

On March 9, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida dismissed a credit repair industry association’s challenge against the CFPB and the FTC for exceeding their constitutional authority in promulgating the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR). In 2020, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit on behalf of two member companies that were subject to TSR enforcement actions, seeking judgments (i) against the FTC for exceeding “its statutory authority in promulgating the TSR,” (ii) against both agencies on the basis that the TSR, as applied, “is an unconstitutional content-based restriction on protected speech,” and (iii) against both agencies on the basis that the TSR “is underinclusive and not narrowly tailored.” The plaintiff also alleged, among other things, that the Bureau was increasing its application of the TSR by “encouraging consumer reporting agencies not to investigate disputes submitted by credit repair organizations” that are reasonably determined to be “frivolous or irrelevant.” The agencies filed a motion to dismiss the complaint, arguing the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction under the Administrative Procedures Act’s (APA) six-year statute of limitations and that the plaintiff failed to state a claim.

In granting the agencies’ motion to dismiss, the court ruled that the lawsuit was filed far beyond the APA’s six-year statute of limitations as the TSR first appeared in the Federal Register in 1995; thus all procedural attacks on the TSR were time barred. The court also ruled that because sending a civil investigative demand or filing a complaint is not considered “a final agency action,” the plaintiff failed to allege a final agency action taken by the agencies against the plaintiff’s members. Further, the court dismissed the plaintiff’s argument regarding the Bureau’s position on investigating frivolous or irrelevant disputes, ruling that the Bureau’s April 2020 Statement on Supervisory and Enforcement Practices Regarding the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Regulation V in Light of the CARES Act (covered by InfoBytes here) is just “a policy statement that has nothing to do with the TSR at issue in this case and is not a final agency action.”