In the final months of President Obama’s administration, the government’s top consumer regulator was negotiating a large settlement with the student loan collector Navient, which it said had misled borrowers and made mistakes that added billions of dollars to their bills. But after President Trump’s victory, the talks between the company and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau broke down, the New York Times reported. Two days before Trump’s inauguration, the bureau sued Navient, accusing it of “systematically and illegally failing borrowers at every stage of repayment.” Two states, Illinois and Washington, simultaneously filed their own suits in state courts. As the bureau has taken a softer approach toward industries, including payday lending, and had its own acting director say it too often exceeds its authority, the possibility that the Trump administration will ease up on Navient has prompted more states to join the legal fray. Five have now sued Navient, two of them within the past four months. “There is growing concern among myself and state attorneys general that the federal government is not only losing interest in holding student loan servicers like Navient accountable, but that the federal government is actively looking for ways to shut down state enforcement actions against Navient and other student loan servicers,” said Jim Hood, the Mississippi attorney general, who sued Navient in July. “The timing of filing our lawsuit reflects that concern.”
