When a federal appeals court ruled in October in PHH v. CFPB that the president should be empowered to remove the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s director at will, rather than only for cause, the 110-page opinion raised doubts about the future vitality of an Obama agency vilified by congressional Republicans and deemed overly aggressive by financial companies, the National Law Journal reported today. It remains unclear whether — or when — Donald Trump will try to remove the CFPB’s director, Richard Cordray, after taking office Jan. 20. What is clear is that companies, in the three months since the PHH ruling was published, want to piggyback on the decision to benefit their cases against the CFPB. The decision sent ripples across the federal court system as companies cited the opinion to needle the agency or even try to escape from its grasp. There’s no certainty that the PHH decision will affect past cases — a question the three-judge appeals panel raised but said it did not need to consider.
