CFPB denies debt collector’s request to set aside CID

Federal Issues CFPB Enforcement Consumer Finance CIDs Debt Collection Single-Director Structure Statute of Limitations Dodd-Frank FDCPA FCRA

On February 6, the CFPB released a Decision and Order denying a debt collection company’s (petitioner) request to set aside or modify a third-party Civil Investigative Demand (CID) issued by the Bureau, and directing the petitioner to provide all information required by the CID. The CID in dispute was issued to the petitioner by the CFPB in November and seeks documents and written responses pertaining to the petitioner’s business practices and its relationship with a New York-based debt collection law firm. The CID requests information regarding whether “debt collectors, furnishers, or associated persons” had, among other things, (i) violated the Consumer Financial Protection Act by ignoring warnings regarding debts resulting from identity theft “in a manner that was unfair, deceptive or abusive”; (ii) violated the FDCPA by disregarding cease-and-desist requests or by failing to provide required notices or making false or misleading statements; or (iii) violated the FCRA by “fail[ing] to correct and update furnished information, or fail[ing] to maintain reasonable policies and procedures.”

In its petition to set aside or modify the CID, the petitioner set out four primary arguments: (i) the structure of the CFPB is unconstitutional, and it therefore “lacks authority to proceed with enforcement activity”; (ii) the CID improperly seeks attorney-client privileged information; (iii) the CID is “overly broad,” does not apply to the petitioner, and does not sufficiently provide the “nature of the conduct under investigation and the applicable provisions of law”; and (iv) the CID improperly seeks information beyond the applicable statute of limitations.

The Bureau’s denial of the petitioner’s request addresses each of the petitioner’s arguments. Regarding the constitutionality of the CFPB’s structure, the order asserts that “the administrative process set out in the [B]ureau’s statute and regulations for petitioning to modify or set aside a CID is not the proper forum for raising and adjudicating challenges to the constitutionality of the [B]ureau’s statute.” In response to the petitioner’s attorney-client privilege argument, the order states that the petitioner “does not ask…to modify the CID to avoid seeking privileged information—it only asks that the CID be quashed in its entirety.” The Bureau states that because the petitioner makes a “blanket assertion” of attorney-client privilege rather than providing the required privilege log in order to properly claim privilege over materials requested in the CID before filing its petition, the petitioner’s argument is “procedurally improper” and does not show that the “CID should be set aside on these grounds.” To the petitioner’s lack of specificity argument, the order states that the CID “sets forth in detail both the conduct under investigation and applicable laws,” adding that there is no requirement that the Bureau disclose the targets of its “ongoing and confidential law-enforcement investigations.” The order also rejects the petitioner’s statute of limitations argument, explaining that the Bureau is not limited to the three years preceding the CID, but “instead what matters is whether the information is relevant to conduct for which liability can be lawfully imposed.”