%1

The question hanging over the CFPB’s arbitration rule — a proposal that drew tens of thousands of comments from consumer and business advocates — is less now about the finer points of the final rule than about whether the regulations will ever see the light of day at all, according to a National Law Journal analysis. President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers are erasing a host of Obama-era rules through the Congressional Review Act — a statutory tool that, before the Trump administration, had only been used once in its 21-year history to roll back a regulation. The law gives Congress a window of 60 legislative days — after an agency has transmitted a new rule to Capitol Hill — to enact a disapproval resolution. If the rule is voided by the Congressional Review Act, the CFPB would be prevented from enacting a “substantially similar” regulation unless it is supported by a new statute. Such a setback would indefinitely handcuff the agency, stymieing its ability to limit forced-arbitration agreements — often found in the fine print of consumer contracts — that the bureau has described as “contract gotchas.”

Republic Airways Holdings Inc. is a step closer to leaving bankruptcy after a judge denied a late challenge to the regional air carrier’s chapter 11 exit plan, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane on Monday overruled a plan objection related to aircraft leases brought by an affiliate of transportation-equipment financier Residco. The challenge has delayed a ruling on Republic’s chapter 11 plan of reorganization for weeks. Republic has said its ability to hire and retain pilots in 2017 could be affected if the airline’s stay in bankruptcy is extended much longer.

SunEdison Inc. sees a possibility for life after bankruptcy even as its unsecured creditors have threatened to upend a reorganization plan, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The clean energy giant, which said after its April bankruptcy that it was toggling between a wind-down or a reorganization, announced the rough terms of a restructuring on Tuesday. Its unsecured creditors have said that they intend to dispute a settlement that’s key to the plan at an upcoming trial however, raising questions about whether the company added any value for its business or lenders after a year in Chapter 11. The SunEdison plan, which comes after the piecemeal sale of more than $1 billion of assets including wind and solar farms, would split the company into a new, publicly traded unit and a trust to pursue lawsuits. It’s ability to pull off the reorganizing still hangs in the balance, hinging on Brookfield Asset Management Inc.’s deals to buy its two yieldcos, which in turn rests on a settlement that still needs court approval.

Arizona Summit Law school, a troubled for-profit institution owned by the InfiLaw System, has been placed on probation by its accrediting body, the American Bar Association, the New York Times reported today. The association’s move was announced on Monday and followed Arizona Summit’s affiliation with Bethune-Cookman University, a nonprofit historically black college in Daytona Beach, Fla. Arizona Summit Law in Phoenix is the second school owned by InfiLaw to be placed on probation for failing to meet A.B.A. accreditation standards. Sterling Partners, a private equity firm in Chicago and Baltimore, is an investor. The first, Charlotte School of Law in Charlotte, N.C., lost its eligibility for federal student aid in January as a result of the probation. Its enrollment has declined sharply, and the school has said it is trying to restart federal aid and is exploring affiliation with a nonprofit college in a Northeastern state. At Arizona Summit, the bar association found that admissions practices, academic programs, and graduation and bar exam passage rates were below par.