Category: Insights

L. Jean Noonan Just before Thanksgiving, Capitol Hill lobbed a bomb at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The explosion was heard across Washington, and the aftershocks were felt throughout the indirect auto finance world. On November 24, the House Committee on Financial Services released a 54-page report by its Republican staff, entitled “Unsafe at Any… Continue reading Congressional Staff Report Reveals Sad Inner Workings of CFPB Fair Lending Attack on Dealer Compensation

Nicole F. Munro As if dealers and finance companies didn’t have enough on their compliance plates with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general, The New York Times, and Elizabeth Warren, along comes a state agency with a new concept in regulation – credit contracts that people can actually understand. OK,… Continue reading Here Come the “Readability” Police

The process of selling and financing vehicles is, as we have noted before, highly regulated. With each step, there are potential land mines just waiting for a careless dealer. One of those pesky land mines is something we lawyers call a “single document” rule. A single document rule requires that all documents, or certain documents,… Continue reading Lots of Pages, But a Single Document

Nicole F. Munro We all knew the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was coming. But few predicted the pervasive wave of subpoenas and enforcement actions brought by other federal agencies as well as state regulators at the close of 2014. Issued in mid-September, the CFPB’s proposal to oversee larger nonbank auto finance companies was widely expected.… Continue reading Seismic Shift

Thomas B. Hudson Two aliens brought their spaceship down slowly above the California highway, matching their speed to the cars below. Opening the ship’s cargo bay, they positioned themselves over a car traveling below. Activating their magnetic loader, they sucked the car and its two passengers into the cargo bay. Their mission was a simple… Continue reading Spacemen Abduct Regulators!

Thomas B. Hudson The U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina, and the North Carolina Department of Justice announced a settlement of the federal government’s first-ever discrimination lawsuit involving “buy here, pay here” auto financing. The settlement, subject to court approval, resolves a lawsuit alleging that Auto… Continue reading Don’t Fence Me In