The top cop for U.S. consumer finance has decided not to sue a payday loan collector and is weighing whether to drop cases against three payday lenders, Reuters reported. The payday loan cases are among about a dozen that Richard Cordray, the former agency chief, approved for litigation before he resigned in November. Cordray was the first to lead the agency that Congress created in 2010 after the financial crisis. The four previously unreported cases aimed to return more than $60 million to consumers. Three are part of routine CFPB work to police storefront lenders. The fourth case concerns who has a right to collect payday loans offered from tribal land. Cordray was ready to sue Kansas-based National Credit Adjusters (NCA), which primarily collects debt for online lenders operating on tribal land. The companies have argued such loans are permitted when they are originated on tribal land. The CFPB under Cordray concluded that NCA had no right to collect on such online loans, no matter where they were made. Mick Mulvaney, interim head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), has dropped the matter and the case is “dead,” Sarah Auchterlonie, a lawyer for NCA, told Reuters this week. She noted the agency appeared to be backing off issues involving tribal sovereignty.
