To amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to establish clear Federal oversight of the development of credit scoring models by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, and for other purposes.
To amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to fix the consumer report dispute process, to ban misleading and unfair consumer reporting practices, and for other purposes.
To amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to ensure that student borrowers are provided relief from their student loans in the instance of substantial misrepresentation or omission by an institution of higher education.
To amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to provide for the relief of interest on certain Federal student loans.
To amend title 9 of the United States Code to prohibit predispute arbitration agreements that force arbitration of disputes arising from private education loans, and for other purposes.
Landlord groups yesterday filed a U.S. constitutional challenge to New York’s rent regulations, alleging that state and city governments had, in effect, taken over nearly a million rent-regulated apartments with its new law, the Wall Street Journal reported. The suit seeks to upend New York’s system of rent regulation that dates back to federal price controls during World War II. The new rent law makes it more difficult for apartment owners to increase rents and eliminates rules that allowed them to free up thousands of apartments from rent regulations. Courts have dismissed similar challenges in New York and other states, but building owners say that their prospects in court have improved since then, in part because of the severity of new restrictions on rental properties. The lawsuit doesn’t seek compensation for property owners, but rather asks that the courts find that the law violates constitutional protections and direct the New York legislature “go back to the drawing board and come up with something else,” said Andrew Pincus, attorney for the landlords.
Freedom Debt Relief LLC, the largest U.S. debt settlement services provider, agreed to pay $25 million to resolve U.S. regulatory allegations it imposed improper charges on consumers and failed to settle their debts as promised, Reuters reported. The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said yesterday that Freedom will pay a $5 million civil fine and $20 million of restitution to settle its lawsuit. It also entered a related consent order with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Freedom did not admit or deny wrongdoing in the settlement, which also resolves claims against Andrew Housser, the San Mateo, California-based company’s co-founder and co-chief executive. Court approval is required. Freedom, part of the Freedom Financial Network, said that it will change some policies and disclosures in connection with the settlement and worked with the CFPB to address its concerns. Freedom said in February that it has negotiated more than $10 billion of consumer debt and enrolled over 600,000 clients. The CFPB had accused Freedom of misleading consumers about creditors’ willingness to negotiate, charging fees after having consumers negotiate their own settlements and falsely claiming it charged fees only on debt settlements it negotiated. It also accused Freedom of failing to tell consumers they could reclaim money deposited in their accounts if they exited their debt settlement programs.
