By Porter Wright on When Congress passed the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act it created a federal statutory right to damages for consumers who suffer abusive debt collection practices. One of those practices, the required disclosures in a communication with the consumer, was the subject of a recent decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on In a divided en banc decision, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has reversed (by vote of 7 to 4) a 2016 decision that a law firm when acting as a debt collector was shielded from liability under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act when it relied on precedent that was … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on Things looked bad for an Illinois law firm in 2014 when a consumer complaint was filed in federal district court against it. It was accused of violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The firm’s purported violation: Not anticipating when an appellate court would overrule established precedent. And an opinion of United States Supreme Court … Continue Reading
By Porter Wright on In October, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published its first supervision examination manual which will be of interest to bankers and other financial service executives. On one level, the manual is fairly pedestrian and may contain little surprising in that most bankers have a fairly extensive appreciation of (and experience with) an examination process. And, … Continue Reading