Industry sign banking connecticut arbitration agreement online
hello everyone this is Michael looter I am the chair or co-chair of the bullying larger of consumer financial services litigation practice group and we're delighted today to present another session of the UDF Council web conference series the you nap Council is a forum for the consumer financial services industry which focuses exclusively on you dap and how to manage dodd-frank requirements develop strategies to help ensure compliance with those provisions as a council member among other things you DEP council members have an opportunity to participate in our web conferences and to receive breaking news updates and exclusive analysis of you tap related legal developments before we get started of course I need to show you this which is a disclaimer saying that what we say today is not legal advice and that legal advice must be tailored of course do specific circumstances of each case but with that let me get going here so the you DEP council presentation today will feature five of our lawyers and we also have two guests from the state attorneys general governmental entities the first person I'd like to introduce today is Joe jayco Joe is going to then introduce our other speakers Joe is a partner in a business attorney in our in our jacksonville florida office he represents clients and complex federal and state legal and policy matters he counsels companies in the financial services regulatory on financial services regulatory matters and really any matter that involves the state attorney general his practice includes a wide range of matters including investigations litigation federal agency action and crisis management he spends a lot of his times just developing and keeping deep ties with AG's nationwide as well as with Congress so far first part of this program I'll turn it over to Joe and then he'll flip it back to me and we'll give a short you'd app update just kind of on the current developments but with that I turn this session over to Joe jayco to introduce our speakers hey thanks Mike so today we have two folks here first going to introduce my friend Sean Riley sean is in the Kentucky attorney general's office that's attorney General Jack Conway and sean has been the chief deputy attorney general since 2012 he was previously the head of the civil litigation division in the attorney general's office and john is a graduate of sean is a graduate of Columbia Law School he also has political experience working on two Senate campaigns Jack Conway's campaign and John Kerry and next we have Jessica Whitney but Jessica's in the Iowa attorney general office and that attorney generals Tom Miller he's the longest-serving AG and jessica is an assistant AG in deputy administrator of the Iowa consumer credit code and she's been involved in a number of issues involving financial services and mortgage issues she's a graduate of the University of Michigan law school and I haven't told her this yet but I saw general Miller last week I spent some time with him in Chicago and he told me that Jessica is a quote star who keeps rising so I'm very pleased that both of the could join us today okay let me just make a couple initial comments and then really what we're going to do is just have a dialogue I've got some questions to pose to Sean and Jessica and you're welcome to email me questions through the webinar throughout this next 20 to 30 minutes but I want to say just three things to kick us off so one is state attorneys general have the ready to bring cases on behalf of the public interest so this is more than just the ability to sue on behalf of the state or a state agency it's the ability to bring cases for the interests of consumers generally across the state so first point you keep in mind second is that attorneys general can join forces in other multi-state investigations and enforcement so they can work with other states on the same case whether that's through the investigation period or ultimately in a settlement and then third every state has some version of a you DEP statute and that it really is a common platform for AG's to pursue cases in remedies so we're talking today obviously about one of the most prolific areas of Ag action and that's unfair deceptive acts and practices okay so let me launch into it so this question I'm just going to toss out for Shawn for you or Jessica you could both answer and that is you know your office offices have really been on the forefront in multi-state efforts in the for-profit college arena and the mortgage industry and other areas and so describe to us a little bit about the process you go through when you're initiating these kinds of significant multi-state actions and maybe can just even start off with where you know how do you get complaints where are the sources of those those cases sure this is uh this is Sean I'll take a stab at that first time but I wanted to first thank you Joe and and Mike for inviting me and Jessica to join you today and thankfully and larger for the opportunity to speak with all of you before I start I just want to give a brief disclaimer of my own that the any of the opinions I get today are my own and are they are not the official opinion of the office of the Attorney General some of the subjects I may discuss today involve pending litigation and so I will do my best to give you an objective read on what's what's happening any of those pieces of litigation but do I get the question Joe there's there's a variety of ways that sort of large multi state enforcement efforts come to be and in preparing for this this today I kind of put them into three buckets of how this information gets to us and how attorney general then process it and make a decision to join forces and bring something in a multi and I multi stay capacity the number one way we receive information about about corporate misconduct that might lead to a multi-state is through actually through consumers through our own constituents we get on a daily basis any number of calls complaining about what is perceived to be an unfair business practice deceptive within the state you know by and large these run the gamut we always get complaints about gas prices for example but it for for the for-profit colleges for Kentucky in particular this really was the way that we were turned on to this this this area of the misconduct that we've been working on for several years now it really all started in the western part of the state there was a private law school in Paducah Kentucky that failed and as a consequence of that failure all the students were left sort of in a very gray area where how to proceed how to recover the money they had spent to matriculate at the institution they are left in a situation where they had non-transferable academic hours received and so it really was an eye-opening experience for our consumer protection attorneys to navigate that process with these students who we're basically out of luck with no credits and significant amount of debt and that happened at the graduate school level which is unique when we talk about some of the typical undergraduate for-profit schools that we've been looking at so that it really is one of the ways that the primary way that we can become aware of potential misconduct as we looked into the failure of this law school we we began to notice similar conduct in some of the for-profit schools operating a state of which they are approximately 150 so really in the for-profit college space we we got keyed into that based on our own consumers calling it to us and telling us what they are experiencing the other two ways I think that we sort of get into multi-state investigations is either by up by crisis so for example the 2008 housing crisis and foreclosure crisis is certainly I think something that precipitated the subsequent national mortgage settlement a few years later that general Miller and Jessica probably has a lot more information on this spearheaded and the in the third way we sort of get into multi-state activity is i would say policy driven and that is when AG's get together arm and they have a particular area that they traditionally focus on and one of those that for an example of that is protection of children so when you have a common policy area that is most AG's regardless of political party are paying attention to protecting children that tends to provide a common ground for them to root out corporate misconduct that is potentially a violation of state consumer protection statutes so examples of that are marketing to children for example 5-hour energy there's an ongoing multi-state where AGS have allege that they are misleading in their marketing in terms of what contained within the product and it's a safety profile that also includes multi state efforts into technology companies that children can access such as Facebook and topics and it also most recent one of the recent examples is worker misclassification where large corporate entities misclassified workers as independent contractors in order to reap some tax benefits and that's an area that ages have worked on collaboratively for years most recently there was a multi-state effort against fedex ground for worker misclassification so those are the some of the main ways that we start to notice activity that could give rise to a multi-state hey Thank You Lynette oh go ahead Jessica oh yeah no I was just going to add just a couple quick things and first also extend my thanks and thanks to general Miller for those kind words and thank you Joe and everyone at Foley on his folks on the line and also caveat these are my opinions not AG Miller's and I would add about sources of complaints and and I think those three categories that Shawn my doubt are excellent but that folks can also see things like I know AG Miller is very active and if he see something or he's reading about something that he thinks is wrong or he sees an ad that he thinks is wrong that that comes up to and i would say that sometimes the sources of complaints especially the consumers don't don't necessarily understand what they're complaining about if we want to take it back to the mortgage situation we were getting complaints i started in this office in 2004 and we were seeing complaints people get got having housing problems and they didn't know what they were complaining about and they would just say things were unfair but looking at them we would see inflated appraisals and stated income fraud going way back to 0 for and we knew the crisis was coming and getting getting focused on board so I I think that complaints can come from many ways talking with other regulators again that's more that's understand sort of policy division and times of crisis and definitely consumers and what we see out there too yeah okay so that that makes me think a little bit Sean just about the actions I've seen you and general Conway take as you mentioned in the for-profit space and particularly you know I saw you teaming up with the Florida Attorney General where I used to be the chief deputy I I believe that you've been involved to some degree with the Department of Education which is going through rulemaking process in this space certainly the CFPB has relationships with state AG's in the former AG of Ohio Richard Cordray for the director and there's thority that you certainly have in relation to the agency and and I believe that general Conway and you have even led some discussions with members of Congress and I think all that is important for this group to know that state AG's are certainly looking out for the interests of their state residents but they're tied into a larger network as you said policy-driven trying to solve problems so maybe each of you could talk just a little bit about the multi-state context when when things get bigger what are those relationships between states that can really drive the largest cases I'm sure this is a Sean again and I'll um I'll uh you know really the thing about the AG world and Joe you know this just as much as anyone on the call is that the there are 50 AG's there their bipartisan but they tend to have ecclesiology between them that really I think benefits their their individual offices and their respective states so a lot of the issues that come to get on the radar screen of a GS if you will they they are cross pollinated and informally from AG to AG for example general general Miller and general Conway have developed a friendship of personal and professional in the eight years that Jack is in ag and there really is nothing that beats jack picking up the phone calling tom and saying you know what this is something we're seeing at for-profit schools in Kentucky are you seeing the same thing and lo and behold general Miller finds out that he is seeing the same thing in Iowa and that's sort of one of the tipping points if you will for when a multi-state investigation starts to snowball so there's this informal process at the beginning where you really have the constitutional office holders in each state for example general Miller and John Connolly talking about problem and sort of talking about what they're seeing between their states and then the next step i think is an interface with the similar federal agencies as you mentioned in example two for-profit schools we have made significant headway with working with secretary Duncan Department of Education and Richard Cordray at CFPB and so a lot of the process is informal its staff driven it's also principle principle driven where you're highlighting and you're sharing information about what this misconduct is that you're seeing and what are possible equitable or other ways that we want to address that at some point the process becomes more formal with the issuance of CITS and potentially the litigation where the information sharing becomes a little bit more formal and subject to rules of procedure and confidentiality provisions and that is when the multi states tend to get more formal structure but really you start out at an informal sort of almost colloquial way of talking about a problem and then it evolves into a more formal structure where you're talking about see IDs and software that we have shared for example in for private investigations for-profit college investigations some of the larger publicly traded targets that we've been investigating with our sister states on any given day each state will drop the same cid on the target so the target will receive 8c IDs that are pretty much identical and that initiates a process where that target is going to be collecting and retaining producing documents to each of these eight states and then it becomes a question of the managing the process whether there's going to be a production state offices or whether there's going to be a common production to a common software interface but all these sort of things evolved as as a multi-state progresses there's really no cookie cutter approach but the general thing is that it starts very informally through sort of the common professional kinship of a GS and then it evolves to join federal partners and formalized into a more just posture that's a that is some great insight and and I think it it is an example of why AG's have not just significant influence in their states but you know can really push national agendas so so let me let me ask you Jessica kind of your experience on the same lines that Sean described particularly with the mortgage industry because I know you were involved and are still involved in some of the posts mortgage crisis cases mean obviously I think everyone on this call knows that general Miller was the one who really led the 25 billion dollar settlement among the five banks and had and as a result has brought some some changes and and how that business run so to give us some pots that you've had from your own experience with multi states um I mean I think Sean did a great job of sort of summarizing how these things come together it's not always the same it's a lot of interpersonal relationships to like Sean said it can be principle driven with the AG's talking to one another being good friends it can be staff driven this we have you know a national association of attorneys general or the great acronym nag uh-huh that you know allows both AG's to get together themselves on on
the principal level but also the staff to get together form relationships for groups that focus on certain issues for example mortgage issues or financial issues have working groups telephone calls where we keep each other through email whatever means updated on what's going on and I think you saw both at play in response to the mortgage you saw Tom taking the lead in an interest in realizing how how critical this was going to be and then staff talking with one another about what we were actually seeing on the ground which like I said in the early years wasn't necessarily getting reported we were kind of laughed at in 04 05 06 when it was booming no one believed us when we said we see we see bad things coming we're starting to see them at the complaint level and so you really found interplay among staff and it was slightly different in different parts of the country you know with how the booms were going in sort of Florida say vs iowa that the frauds were different but we were able to talk to one another and and recognize what we were seeing and work together and again have you have a good relationship with your AG and you're able to tell him or her what you're seeing and then they also talk and you also have relationships that federal and state agencies again with sort of staff level and your principals have it more on the principal level and it really works to facilitate figuring out what what is actually happening and getting getting your hands around around something sort of as complex as say what was going on in the mortgage world okay so so let's let's take that which I mean in and of itself a multi-state can apply tremendous pressure and and let me ask some questions about your relationships with federal agencies because you kind of layer on top of that what the AG's do you know whether it's with DOJ or the FTC or the CFPB or you know Sean mentioned the Department of Education on the foot profit I mean there's a host of federal agencies that that you may have partnerships with whether through the National Organization nag or whether it's just your enforcement of federal law so so I'd be curious if if one of you could speak to either the relationship may be a case that you've worked on with the FTC I know there's a database that AG's share with the FPC for consumer complaints You certainly have joint enforcement actions so a little bit of that relationship at the FTC or and or with the CFPB and and some of the new things that might be coming in terms of Ag cases in conjunction with the CFPB that we haven't seen as much in the past sure I'll go ahead and I'll start with FCC and maybe Sean can take CFPB or we can flip flop it doesn't matter I'm we work closely with both of them I think the FTC relationship goes way back a lot of state statutes that you know the unfair deceptive apps acts and practices statutes are called little FTC X because they were sort of copying or aping those those the FTC statute states have long worked closely with the FTC we share information as you mentioned there's a complaint database that the FTC keeps active and states can upload their complaints as well so you and then if you are uploading your complaints that have access to it you can search and you can search by state you can search by company and see what's going on I think there's long been this close relationship and again it regardless of party lines it's not partisan it's sort of been who just a sort of common goal of consumer protection and you can work closely with the FTC we can either be all looking at an issue say for example mortgage foreclosure rescue if we're going to focus on mortgage so this real scamming foreclosure rescue companies that I think do everyone a disservice from the the lenders to the consumers there were so many of them right it's like whack-a-mole they pop up overnight that it didn't necessarily make sense to focus on one or two but what made a whole lot of sense was for the FTC to go after as many as they could in the states to do so at the same time sharing information using that complaint database to see companies were most active in your area again working over emails figuring out what's or just general tactics works well work well at going after these companies and then maybe doing something and announcing it all at the same time to have a very large impact on done this sort of I want to call them a very legitimate industry but this industry and let them know that you know not only have to see looking at them but you know over half the states were looking at them and taking action as well on the same time alternatively we can work closely with the FTC and bring a joint action which we've also done in the past where we have common interest agreements we it's much like working with the other states and and we work together and we're in the room at the same time and we both have our own areas of enforcement when we work together I think it's a little bit easier on the company when that happens because they're not you know trying to face the war on two fronts you are you get everyone in the room at the same time and you hopefully get one universal resolution and you're not you're not battling to to folks and it's easier for us because we have more people looking at it and more resources so I think that their win wins when I went the federal folks and state folks work together so that's the FTC Sean if you want to do CFPB or I'm happy to do it too so um sure I mean I I think just to follow up on Jessica's comments on the FTC we we have a we have an exceptionally good relationship with the FTC and they what they also in addition to tracking consumer complaints they have when the rubber meets the road they just have a tremendous amount of expertise when it comes to litigating certain complex consumer frauds for example we recently worked hand-in-hand with the FTC on one of the largest pyramid scheme corporations in America fortune hi-tech marketing which was based in Lexington Kentucky and without without partnering with the FTC at the outset we would not have been able to make the economic case put on the economic proof that this company was indeed a pyramid scheme and so it was that partnership from from the from the outset that really a successful outcome there in terms of CFPB the CFPB is in many in many ways still figuring out i think itself but that's not to say that the AG's have not really embraced it really embraced the potential jurisdiction of the CFPB particularly when it comes to in the for-profit college spaces is where there's been tremendous energy thus far and then also with online lending and payday lending as the CFPB continues to flush out potential new potential new regulations for each of those sectors but they have been really a true partner when it comes to the financial interaction that for-profit schools have with their potential students for many students whose use to matriculate into for-profit for-profit institutions they're these institutions are off often offer private loans provided by the school itself and there have been significant questions of transparency and disclosure about what students are are told when they sign on the dotted line to take out these enormous amounts of private loans from these colleges with little to no correlation about what their job prospects are when they if they even finish complete the program so the CFPB has really put helped us to put a little more gusto in this effort and I think that as and particularly with director Cordray who is former AG of Ohio he really gets it and so he's really trying in his tenure to to give the agency some teeth and I think in terms of relationship with the AG's it's one that's going to continue to evolve but so far so good and and I would add with the CFPB it has been excellent on all fronts on several different lending areas they've always made sure to seek our input but and I think because of you know the the legislation that created the CFPB and the dodd-frank act in general AEG's reserved meant to have a special role with CFPB dodd-frank giving the AG some authority it served naturally makes us partners in certain areas and much like Shawn pointed out the FTC has expertise the CFPB also is developing their own expertise and has lots of experts on different issues and has far more resources than some of some of the state's than most of the state's I would say and it's good good to be able to access those and to have a very solid working relationship with the CFPB let me let me pick up there and we're on the home stretch so anyone's got a last-minute question feel free to go ahead and email that in but let me ask you about something you just mentioned Jessica and that is you know with dodd-frank and with the authority that ages have in enforcing the federal you depth standards the ability to enforce CFPB rules and regulations along with the clearing out of some of the traditional preemption that AG's had in the financial services area so that came through the the Cuomo case as well as that in the dodd-frank statute you know our AG offices building up and ramping up experience in their attorneys for the financial services sector is that something that that both of you are seeing now that you really have the ability to get in and drive these cases you know I I would say we had the experience before and we were fighting preemption for a long time right um and we kept saying you know you had the whole wachovia line of cases that we had more authority then maybe we we did have especially until dodd-frank I definitely think that Frank was sort of the watershed moment it gave us sort of clear authority on specific authority over national banks we've always done sort of financial regulation within our own states and state banks and state lending non depository institutions and that's part of my administrative role so I think we've always had that financial services at Bertie ceria it's just been broadened to definitely include national banks we are learning a great deal from CFPB and where we can we're working closely with CFPB and I think at this point those states have only brought maybe half dozen five maybe it's five you DAP cases are not Dodd Frank cases under the dodd-frank act and I don't think they've been solely dodd-frank cases I think they've just tacked on a dodd-frank claim here or there to get jurisdiction but I think it's definitely the dodd-frank act has definitely brought a juice to the forefront and if nothing else I think it's given companies are different you know something to focus on you know where's before they were maybe trying to swat us away and not always I lot lots of financial institutions have worked with us but now I think you know we do have a seat at the table and we're someone I think you should definitely think about when when thinking of enforcement well a thanks that's really that's really helpful insight and obvious got one more question here for Sean now i think i mentioned that sean is in kentucky so we're going to attempt to get some insider knowledge from him as you know the Kentucky Derby winner was American Pharoah su shun American Pharoah gonna win the Triple Crown oh so that's that's a tough one Thank You chances I I don't know I mean I watched him in the race but last year California chrome couldn't do it I'm not as bullish on American Pharoah but you can never go wrong placing a two dollar bet for a triple crown winner there you have it everyone take your two dollars and head on out do a legitimate lee though right you don't want to get in trouble with the state AG's hey I am back mom that the Canadian fires back home hey I really appreciate both of you being all with us this is great insight and it's it's always helpful for companies to get this because it it helps them to ensure their best practices to take another look at their business and their products and services to make sure they're compliant so thanks so much Sean and Jessica and I will turn it now back to Michael Weaver thank you and Joe thanks for those insightful questions I think Joe is able to ask those kinds of questions because Joe himself served as a deputy attorney general of the state of Florida was chief of staff for that office for several years he also was an in-house lawyer who managed a significant challenge brought by 26 states against his den company and managed that to a multi-state settlement that involved 49 states you know kind of about the company little litigation so thank you so much Joe for your insight as well and I wanted to tell folks that we do have a Q&A widget which i think is displayed in the left year screen where you can ask questions during this program moreover this PowerPoint presentation will be available at our website at foley com in the next few days and you can get a copy of the slides there of BIOS are for our presenters are also available in the resource list widget that is in your on your display as a reminder today's program is being recorded and will be available on Foley's website in the next couple days next I'd like to shift to our you'd app update and this comes from two of our three authors or principal offers authors of our Foley's unfair deceptive and abusive acts or practices treatise that has been published by bloomberg bna in the banking practice portfolio this treatise covers the it's a comprehensive overview of federal law covering you dap in the consumer financial services area the principal author of that is the co-chair of our group consumer financial services group and also vice chair of our litigation practice Marty Bishop and helping on that in very significant ways we're Rebecca Hanson and Tom Hardy who are both senior council in our Chicago office Rebecca and Tom are going to give us the current update and if Marty would like to chime in at any point I'm sure you'll do so so folks let me turn it over to Rebecca and Tom to give us a you tap update thanks Mike this is Tom Hardy I'm going to kick it off and then Rebecca is going to close it out here so this is just sort of a general overview not intended to be complete and comprehensive but kind of summarizing some things that have happened really recently particular in the past couple of months even the CFPB's enforcement actions and other things that they've done and inserting on say one of the interesting things that the CFPB does is put out so it's puts out a lot of information about complaints that it's receiving a lot of statistical information and breakdowns and it's 2014 kind of wrap up response report it is interesting to compare what's happened over the last few years they've received over 250,000 complaints in 2014 and from 2013 and 2014 the most changed category complaints with debt collection which tripled in the number of complaints and now these debt collection complaints so complaints about debt collectors are thirty-five percent of their total complaints so that's a huge increase from your year and with that increase comparatively mortgage-related complaints have kind of dropped off a little bit and it's still the second greatest category complaints that they're receiving but it's definitely a lot less than it was in 2013 and the third greatest it's not listed on the slide but the third greatest category complaints is quite a reporting and those have also jumped up in the past in the past year a little bit as well so we're seeing credit reporting in debt collection jumping up and mortgage kind of subsiding a little bit one of the areas that the CFPB looks at is fair lending and there's some indication that there's going to be a lot more activity in that bass the near future but there's already been quite a bit you can see in the 2014 annual report that was just put out in a last couple of a couple of months over 224 million dollars was returned to consumers last year for fair lending violations and the Department of Justice just recently disclosed among a lot of other information so that it has 10 joint investigations regarding ECOA equal credit opportunity act violations involving national origin and racial discrimination and some of them it's speculated although it's not quite clear from the d.o.g JJ a disclosure might involve auto lending and so you might see some enforcement actions resulting from these inv
stigations in the near future and certainly it's been and will continue to be a major concentration of CFPB and the DOJ one area that also looks to be a hot area is bank overdraft fees the Supervisory highlights that to res your highlights that just came out winner of this year so just recently it says that there's a it noted that there's a calculation of overdraft fees based on non settle transactions so in other words people are having their overdraft fees based on transactions that have posted but haven't been settled and that's a change in a lot of practices that the CFPB is viewing as increasing the likelihood that consumers will incur fees that they didn't bargain for and so this is something they've noted they haven't actually you know that there's definitely going to be some activity in this area it seems from what they're what they're saying because they're definitely the Supervisory highlights concentrate on this quite a bit I mean it's definitely interesting reading in general about what CFPB is is looking into and what it might do in the future but just recently in April twenty-eighth this year the CFPB filed consent order about an action for consent to order staying at a bank viola the overdraft opt-in rule most charging overdraft fees to consumers who had bargained for opt in coverage and I on top of 48 almost 48 million that had already been refunded this order is going to require this bank to pay an additional 7.5 million dollar penalties plus refunds of additional overdraft fees so that's a significant area of concentration as well and here's a so RESPA anti-kickback actions there this is sort of a duo of cases or enforcement actions in January there's a complaint against two banks plus the former a former bank officer and his wife regarding alleged kickbacks that violated RESPA then in April just just recently another complaint against a title company and two of its executives so this is these are basically the same kinds of transactions you know the two sides of the same transactions here so the title company on one side and the bank bank officers on the other and director Cordray has said just about these specific actions that this is should serve as a warning to all those in the mortgage market well if he's saying that that means that look out because you know there'll be more of this in the future and one of the things that's very interesting about this is just the the individuals who are being named in these complaints these actions and we just saw I think just yesterday the day before an action filed against to loan payment processing companies as well as the owner of those two companies seeking a judgment for deceptive practices as well so you're seeing a lot of executives and employees of these companies also being brought into the enforcement actions as defendants now one of the things that's kind of interesting just recently happened in May first there's a consent order filed for against a land developer the allegation being that the land developer wasn't had misrepresented to purchasers that roads and the development were completed and County approved and the CFPB through this consent order order the developer to actually fix the road the headlines were all basically CFPB orders developer to fix potholes but this is sort of an interesting you know expansion of the jurisdiction or authority and scope of the CFPB's reach and I think we're going to see some more this kind of thing in the future and now i'm going to kick it over to rebecca to finish out the rest of this update thanks Tom I'm just going to quickly touch on some of the other major areas that the Bureau is focused on the first thing debt collection debt collection is an area that hits all of the bureau's high areas of interest you've got a you know people generally who are in a financially vulnerable situation you've got people in parts of that population or people who don't are they're not native English speakers or don't have a high degree of Education the Bureau is very focused on these groups and how marketing and servicing to these groups plays out and last month actually the bureau took action as they have been doing very regularly against the loan servicing company because they were using false threats multiple phone calls and improper methods for debt collection another area that the bureau's been very focused on our payday loans the Bureau is looking at we're working on a new set of rules for payday loans again this is an area that that hits the populations that the Bureau is very focused on they're looking to impose new rules that would prevent situations basically that put the consumer in a debt trap where they are just in a cycle of debt and can't get out of that cycle students have been a huge area of interest for the bureau we heard our guest speakers talk about the for-profit institutions and interest in those the bureau's crackdown on representations that are being made to students in the loan process recently they crack down on misrepresentations that were being made about out you know the impact of students participating in the federal student loan rehabilitation program the Bureau is very very active on campuses trying to make sure that credit cards being aimed at students are vetted and making sure that students are getting the information that they need about them so they're going to continue to be interested in that area and they actually also like they ask parents of students to put your complaints on our website let's get everybody to talking about it and it will be continued to be an area of interest for the bureau and in addition to that the the bureau's are very focused on the military and our servicemembers the bureau recently took action against a company that processes military allotments for service members and that's a system by which service members are able to deduct payments directly from their earnings so that they can then send money back home for example or pay their bills the company was found to have charged undisclosed reoccurring fees and they did it in a manner so that it was very hard to detect because there the money kept being deposited into the account and the fees were just kind of eaten up little by little and it added up over time the bureau cracked down on that company and you know the bureau's very focused on you know making access to financial products easy for service members because they have additional burdens of you know trying to get a spouse so you know then another country have access to their accounts and whatnot that type of saying they're they're trying to make financial products easier for service members and finally the bureau is likely to take aim at arbitration clauses very soon we've all entered into some sort of agreement for one thing or another that contain arbitration clauses and you know many of us don't even read them don't know they're there until an issue arises and you know the ability to challenge those agreements is very difficult as well and the Bureau noted that about roughly half of all credit card and checking accounts are subject to arbitration clauses and of course you know the Bureau has been investigating this area and is obviously not convinced that there is a consumer benefit to those and is looking at regulations to curve their use for those are the major areas that the Bureau has been focused on that we're seeing enforcement actions rising out of and if you have any questions we welcome them and I will pass the phone back to Michael looter thank you so much Rebecca we have gotten some questions in that we would like to address I don't know that we can get to the mall but we have a question here that the question is are the debt collection complaints more relative to third-party collectors or first party collectors do the AG's look at the two first and third party collectors differently and Joe I don't know if the AG's are still in the line and can supplement my answer here but I would like to share something with you and that is first off debt collection at the federal level has always been covered by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act which is a statute that specifically excludes the original creditor from coverage many many states though in their own debt collection laws will include the original creditor so many of many of the prohibitions that we see at the federal level applied the state already via those state laws the CFPB has also expressed a desire to an intent to issue the first-ever regulation down to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and in its pronouncements about that it seems rather clear to me that they're seriously considering not literally extending the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to original creditors but using their you deaf authority to in essence make those same rules and restrictions applicable via the UTEP authority so in other words the regulations will come out they will cover original creditors under you'd app authority third-party debt collectors under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and in a sense essen supply many many of the same rules the agency the Bureau is obviously very very concerned about debt collection practices in America and believe that some of the culprits are original creditors and we expect action on that sometime this year or next Joe any insight from you or the AGS on on the how a GSR looking at those two items third party and first party collectors yeah Mike I think I think we completed our section so Sean and jessica have already dropped off the call okay I thought that was probably the case i would like to talk to just a few more minutes though ojo about your your work as the as the AG's told us oftentimes they will gather together to go after a company or a practice on a kind of a nationwide basis and would you share with the group what it is that a company should do and think about when they're not targeted by an individual AG but by many or several AG's yes sure Mike so you know one thing that I hoped came out of the discussion we had today is that AG's are motivated equally by legal issues by policy issues and by politics 43 of the 50 a GSR elected officials certainly a GSR well positioned to run for governor and US Senate you know they they have their their own particular interests that would have motivated their campaigns in the first place or things that they get attracted to such as the Kentucky HT going after the for-profit college space so when you think about approaching an attorney general you need to consider all three of those elements if you're just going in on the legal shoes you're really missing what might be the public policy that's driving an investigation or you might be missing the political angle that can help resolve that particular issue so with multi states in large degree that just gets multiplied out so now you have those motivations you know x 10 or x 15 or 20 but they're each even though there may be a similar legal issue they're pursuing doesn't mean all of those ages are having the same motivations and so having the ability to get in there and pick that apart and figure out how do you satisfy each of their concerns is really the goal my practice is among the 50 state attorneys general so I know most of the state AG's personally I've been in this world for over eight years now and and so I know some of the things that that motivate as a GS I certainly represent companies you know under investigation but also another way to influence them is getting in before your company is under under the microscope and that is you know having someone that's gathering Intel from the AG's on what issues they're looking at someone who speak into the AG's about your industry or maybe even about your company and educating them building champions so that if something does hit you've got an AG or two in place you know will pick up your phone call and we'll we'll put the brakes on something until you get your side of the story in that's that's important work I know a lot of companies do that in terms of Congress or they might do that in terms of the state legislature in fact affecting the laws and you can have a similar type influence and an access to a GS on the front end and it's something we're thinking about it particularly if you've got business in in a large number of states thank you so much Joe folks on the line i wanted to do to you that also that we have another program next week on responding to government investigations whether it be a seat state AG or a CFPB or another government regulator will do that on the 21st may 21st at noon central time the target the excuse me this is being put on in conjunction with our for-profit university practice but it really has general applicability our partners Lisa Knoller and our senior counsel of junkies we're very active in these government investigations will present kind of a best practices presentation on that and anyone's interested in signing up for that you go to foley calm and go to the consumer financial services page and you can under events find that upcoming event and register for it and we encourage you to come I think it'll be a good program anything else from any of the other folks on the line oops we just got another question which is hello is there CLE credit for this I think we have made application for that is that right David a mic I think that's some we'll have to check into and get back I know different states you know have different criteria in terms of the number of lawyers that are involved versus non-lawyers so maybe we can get back to them on that right great all right everyone thank you so much for your time and that closes out our program for today
