InfoBytes Blog
Filter
Subscribe to our InfoBytes Blog weekly newsletter and other publications for news affecting the financial services industry.
Special Alert: Fifth Circuit finds CFPB funding unconstitutional — Now what?
The Fifth Circuit ruled last night in CFSA v. CFPB that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding structure is unconstitutional, triggering a potential wave of implications discussed below.
The holdings
A panel of three Fifth Circuit judges unanimously held that the CFPB funding structure created by Congress violated the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution, which provides that “no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” It ruled that, although the CFPB spends money pursuant to a validly enacted statute, the structure violates the Appropriations Clause because the CFPB obtains its funds from the Federal Reserve (not the Treasury), the CFPB maintains funds in a separate account, the Appropriations Committees do not have authority to review the agency’s expenditures, and the bureau exercises broad authority over the economy. The court rejected the bureau’s arguments that the funding structure was necessarily constitutional because it was created by and subject to Congress, and distinguished other agencies that are funded outside of the annual appropriations process.
Special Alert: New Fed guidelines clarify, but do not transform, master account and payment services access
The Federal Reserve Board recently issued final guidelines for the Reserve Banks to use in reviewing requests from a range of financial services providers for access to Federal Reserve master accounts and payment services. Master account and Federal Reserve services allow institutions to transfer money to other master accountholders directly and hold funds in the Federal Reserve System, while others must go through third parties — which can add cost, delay, and further complication to transactions.
The final guidelines are substantially similar to those proposed in 2021 and a supplement issued earlier this year. They make the application process more transparent by describing the risk factors that a Reserve Bank should take into consideration and by applying a three-tier approach regarding the intensity of a Reserve Bank’s review. However, the guidelines do not broaden the categories of entities that are eligible to apply in the first place, do not establish application processing timelines, and do not provide a clear path forward for entities that lack federal bank supervision, including novel charter types.
Special Alert: NYDFS fines trading platform for BSA/AML, transaction monitoring, and cybersecurity lapses
The New York Department of Financial Services and a trading platform on Aug. 1 entered into a consent order to resolve deficiencies identified during a 2019 examination and a subsequent investigation by the department’s enforcement section. The consent order focused on deficiencies related to Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering compliance, transaction monitoring, cybersecurity, and related New York certifications of compliance. The company will pay a $30 million civil monetary penalty and retain an independent consultant that will assist with remediating the issues highlighted in the order and report to NYDFS on remediation progress.
The consent order has far-reaching implications for all financial services companies that come under the jurisdiction of the NYDFS.
The trading platform is a wholly owned subsidiary of a financial services company that offers U.S.-based retail investors the ability to trade stocks, options, and crypto currency on a commission-free basis through its broker-dealer subsidiary. The trading platform is licensed by the NYDFS to engage in virtual currency and money transmitter businesses in New York. Of primary concern for the NYDFS was the platform’s alleged reliance on its parent company’s compliance and cybersecurity programs through enterprisewide systems that the NYDFS found to be inadequate. Additionally, according to NYDFS, the platform allegedly had few to no qualified personnel or management involved in overseeing those programs, which NYDFS has implicitly indicated cannot be outsourced.
Special Alert: House subcommittee hears testimony on privacy bill
The House Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce held a June 14 hearing, “Protecting America’s Consumers: Bipartisan Legislation to Strengthen Data Privacy and Security,” to listen to testimony from consumer advocates and industry representatives on the recently proposed American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA).
The bipartisan initiative faces new headwinds following June 22 remarks by Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA), who cited “major enforcement holes” in the legislation on preemption issues — but expressed hope that the sponsors could offer revisions.
Special Alert: DOJ settles claims of algorithmic bias
On June 21, the United States Department of Justice announced that it had secured a “groundbreaking” settlement resolving claims brought against a large social media platform for allegedly engaging in discriminatory advertising in violation of the Fair Housing Act. The settlement is one of the first significant federal actions involving claims of algorithmic bias and may indicate the complexity of applying “disparate impact” analysis under the anti-discrimination laws to complex algorithms in this area of increasingly intense regulatory focus.
Special Alert: Congress releases draft privacy bill
A comprehensive federal privacy law drew one step closer to reality earlier this month when a bipartisan group of representatives and senators released a draft of the proposed American Data Privacy and Protection Act.
Passage of the ADPPA, which combines elements of prior proposals in an effort to reach a legislative compromise, is still far from assured. But it represents a meaningful starting point for further discussions, and is already shaping the long-running debate on national privacy standards. This alert looks closely at the proposed statutory text that seeks to define the breadth and scope of a federal privacy regime that policymakers have contemplated for years.
Greater clarity about bill text and its overall prospects for passage are likely to emerge at the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s hearing scheduled for tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. ET.
Special Alert: Fed finalizes rule for FedNow platform
The Federal Reserve Board recently issued a final rule for its FedNow instant-payments platform that offers more clarity on how the new service will work while essentially adopting the proposed rule. FedNow will stand alongside private sector initiatives and, like more modern payments systems, will feature credit payments to push funds rather than debit payments to pull funds, offering faster processing.
Highlights of the new rule and FedNow
- Not yet open for business. The Fed continues to target release of FedNow for sometime in 2023. It will implement the 24x7x365 real-time payments service in stages, each with additional features and enhancements.
- Not a consumer or business app or service. Depository institutions that are eligible to hold Reserve Bank accounts will be able to use FedNow, which will be administered by the 12 Reserve Banks. Consumers and businesses may not participate in FedNow directly, and therefore, could not send payment orders to a Reserve Bank through it. They would instead send instant payments through their depository institution accounts.
- Bank v. nonbank direct participation in FedNow. Eligible institutions include banks, savings associations, credit unions, U.S. branches and agencies of non-U.S. banks, Edge or agreement corporations, some systemically important financial market utilities, and government-sponsored entities (including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). We use the term “banks” throughout to simplify the discussion.
- Not yet open for business. The Fed continues to target release of FedNow for sometime in 2023. It will implement the 24x7x365 real-time payments service in stages, each with additional features and enhancements.
Special Alert: Eleventh Circuit upholds terms of arbitration agreement in challenge under Dodd-Frank
On May 26, 2022, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a published decision holding that the Dodd-Frank Act does not prohibit the enforceability of delegation clauses contained in consumer arbitration agreements “in any way.” This opinion is of potentially broad significance in the class action and arbitration space since it is one of the first appellate decisions in the country concerning Dodd-Frank’s arbitration provision and supports broad enforcement of delegation clauses even where a statute could allegedly prohibit arbitration of the underlying claim.
In Attix v. Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC, the Eleventh Circuit reversed a decision of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida denying Carrington’s motion to compel arbitration that was based on the plaintiff’s argument that the anti-waiver provision in the Dodd-Frank Act, prohibited enforcement of the arbitration agreement. The anti-waiver provision of the Dodd-Frank Act provides that “no other agreement between the consumer and the creditor relating to the residential mortgage loan or extension of credit . . . shall be applied or interpreted so as to bar a consumer from bringing an action in an appropriate district court of the United States.” The district court agreed with the plaintiff’s argument that the Dodd-Frank Act prohibited arbitration of the underlying dispute and in doing so, side-stepped the delegation clause that delegated such threshold determinations to an arbitrator.
In a 52-page published opinion, the Eleventh Circuit reversed the decision of the district court, holding that the Dodd-Frank Act does not prohibit enforcing delegation clauses, such as the clause at issue, which “clearly and unmistakably” delegates to the arbitrator “threshold arbitrability disputes.” The circuit court found that in such circumstances, all questions of arbitrability are delegated to an arbitrator “unless the law prohibits the delegation of threshold arbitrability issues itself.”
The court went on to broadly hold that the Dodd-Frank Act does not prohibit the enforceability of delegation clauses “in any way.” In doing so, the Eleventh Circuit explained that if Dodd-Frank had been intended to prohibit the enforcement of delegation clauses, then it could have been drafted that way, but instead, “the actual statute is silent as to who may decide whether a particular contract falls within the scope of its protections.” While the Dodd-Frank Act prohibits arbitration agreements from being applied or interpreted in a particular manner, it does not prohibit the enforcement of delegation clauses, and as a result, the court held that under the terms of Carrington and the plaintiff’s agreement, the arbitrator (and not the court) must determine the threshold question of whether the Dodd-Frank Act prohibits enforcement of Carrington’s arbitration agreement since it is a “quintessential arbitrability question.”
Significantly, the court also held that a challenge to an agreement to arbitrate on the basis that a statute precludes its enforcement is not a “specific challenge” to a delegation clause found within the arbitration agreement, such that the court lacks jurisdiction to review the enforceability of the delegation clause. In other words, where a challenge “is only about the enforceability of the parties’ primary arbitration agreement” and there is a delegation clause, “an arbitrator must resolve it.” As the Eleventh Circuit explained, “when an appeal presents a delegation agreement and a question of arbitrability, we stop. We do not pass go.”
This case has significance for anyone considering drafting an arbitration agreement particularly in a class action context. A threshold drafting question is whether or not to delegate issues of arbitrability to the arbitrator or allow a court to resolve the issue. Under this decision, a question of whether a statute bars arbitration of claims is for the arbitrator to decide when there is a delegation clause, unless the statute also explicitly bars delegation clauses. This decision reinforces that inclusion of a properly drafted delegation clause in an arbitration agreement can result in a case improperly filed in court being more quickly sent to arbitration, even where the dispute is whether a statute prohibits the claim from being arbitrated in the first instance.
Buckley represented Carrington on appeal with a team comprising Fredrick Levin, who argued the appeal, Scott Sakiyama, Brian Bartholomay, and Sarah Meehan. For questions regarding the case, please contact one of the team members or a Buckley attorney with whom you have worked in the past.
Special Alert: Breaking down the proposed CRA overhaul
The federal banking agencies last week announced their highly anticipated proposal to revamp and modernize regulations implementing the Community Reinvestment Act. The proposal may significantly impact the compliance obligations of large banks, which the proposal generally defines as those with assets greater than $2 billion, while granting smaller banks the option of continuing to comply under the existing framework. The proposal aims to bring to a close the CRA reform process that began more than a decade ago, and was marked most recently by the OCC’s decision to pull back its 2020 regulatory overhaul (as covered by InfoBytes here).
Special Alert: Federal court says state bank, fintech partner must face Maryland’s allegation of unlicensed lending before state ALJ
A federal court late last month told a state-chartered bank and its fintech partner that they must return to a state administrative law proceeding to fight a Maryland enforcement action alleging that their failure to obtain a license to lend and collect on loans violated state law — potentially rendering the terms of certain loans unenforceable.
The Missouri-chartered bank and its partners attempted to remove an action brought by the Office of the Maryland Commissioner of Financial Regulation to the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, but the district court determined that removal was not proper and that Maryland’s Office of Administrative Hearings was the appropriate venue.
OCFR initially filed charges in January 2021 in Maryland’s Office of Administrative Hearings against the bank and its partner asserting the bank made installment and consumer loans and extended open-ended or revolving credit in the state without being licensed or qualifying for an exception to licensure. As a result, OCFR said they “‘may not receive or retain any principal, interest, or other compensation with respect to any loan that is unenforceable under this subsection.’” It said that not only are the bank’s loans to all Maryland consumers possibly unenforceable, but also that the bank, or its agents or assigns, could in the alternative be “prohibited from collecting the principal amount of those loans from any of these consumers or from collecting any other money related to those loans.”
The OCFR’s charge letter also said the fintech company that provided services to the bank violated the Maryland Credit Services Business Act by providing advice and/or assistance to consumers in the state “with regard to obtaining an extension of credit for the consumer when accepting and/or processing credit applications on behalf of the Bank without a credit services business license.” Additionally, the OCFR alleged violations of the Maryland Collection Agency Licensing Act related to whether the fintech company engaged in unlicensed collection activities, thus subjecting it to the imposition of fines, restitutions, and other non-monetary remedial action.
The defendants filed a notice of removal to federal court last year while the enforcement action was still pending before the OAH; OCFR moved to remand the case back to the agency.
In granting the OCFR’s motion to remand, the court concluded that the OCFR persuasively argued that the defendants have not properly removed this case from the OAH for several reasons, including that the OAH does not function as a state court. “Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1441, a defendant may remove to federal court ‘any civil action brought in a State court of which the district courts of the United States have original jurisdiction.’” However, the court determined that, while defendants correctly observed that the OAH possesses certain “court-like” attributes, its limitations clearly showed that it does not function as a state court.
In reaching this conclusion, the court considered several undisputed facts, including that the OCFR is a unit of the Maryland Department of Labor “responsible for, among other things, issuing licenses to entities wishing to issue loans to consumers in Maryland and investigating violations of Maryland’s consumer loan laws.” The court also said that, while OCFR has authority under Maryland law to investigate potential violations of law or regulation and has the ability to issue cease and desist orders, revoke an individual’s license, or issue fines, it cannot enforce its own subpoenas or orders — and that its decisions are not final and may be appealed to a state circuit court.
The defendants had argued that the case involved a federal question as a result of the complete preemption of state usury laws by Section 27 of the FDI Act. The court said licensure, not state usury law claims, was the issue at hand.
During a status conference held last month to discuss OCFR’s motion to remand, defendants requested an opportunity to file a motion certifying the case for appeal. The court will hold in abeyance its remand order pending resolution of that motion. Parties’ briefings are due by the end of May.
If you have any questions regarding the ruling or its ramifications, please contact a Buckley attorney with whom you have worked in the past.