On September 19, 2022, the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (“DCWP”) issued Proposed Rules in an attempt to clarify and expand upon Local Rule 144, the NYC law relating to Automated Employment Decision Tools. (NOTE: It may be helpful to check out my previous blog discussing Local Rule 144.) Now, these Rules are merely “proposed” and are currently open to public comment. In fact, on October 24, 2022, there will be a public hearing on these rules.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Consumer Protection Branch works with other branches and federal law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute civil and criminal violations of the nation’s consumer protection laws, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Act. In criminal cases, not only can targets face charges under these laws, but they can face charges for mail fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy, and other federal crimes as well.
The Justice Department announced that GM Financial has agreed to pay over $3.5 million to resolve allegations that it violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) by illegally repossessing 71 servicemembers’ vehicles and by improperly denying or mishandling over 1,000 vehicle lease termination requests.
In August 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published a circular confirming that, under certain circumstances, entities may “violate the prohibition on unfair acts or practices in the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) when they have insufficient data protection or information security.” The circular sets forth the CFPB’s analysis of relevant laws governing data security for financial institutions and provides several examples where a failure to implement certain data security measures may increase the risk that an entity’s conduct triggers liability under the CFPA.
In a recent en banc decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that a debt collector’s disclosure of a consumer’s debt to a third party mail vendor was not actionable under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) because the consumer did not show he suffered the type of injury that bears a “close relationship” to one traditionally recognized at common law—in this case, “public disclosure of private facts.”
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