On August 29, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced updates to its Consumer Compliance Examination Manual, marking a pivotal shift in how potential discrimination under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Fair Housing Act will be evaluated. The FDIC will now focus solely on evidence of disparate treatment, removing all references to disparate impact analysis from its examination procedures. This action follows on the heels of the OCC’s announcement on July 14 that it had removed all references to disparate impact analysis from the Fair Lending booklet of the Comptroller’s Handbook and directed examiners to cease examining banks for disparate impact liability, discussed here.
A divided federal appeals court has ruled that President Trump illegally fired Democratic FTC member Rebecca Slaughter and has ordered that she be reinstated to her position.
“The government has no likelihood of success on appeal given controlling and directly on point Supreme Court precedent,” Judges Patricia Millett and Cornelia Pillard of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, said. Both are Obama appointees.
I’ve been monitoring collection calls for over 30 years—sometimes sitting side-by-side with collectors, other times reviewing recorded calls. Along the way, I’ve picked up countless insights. But here’s the funny thing: many of the biggest lessons I’ve learned had nothing to do with the quality of the call itself.
Instead, they were tied to technology glitches, office culture, or management oversights that quietly shaped the customer and employee experience.
In a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the court reversed a district court’s ruling and compelled arbitration in the case of Massel v. Successfulmatch.com dba Millionaire Match. The appellate court concluded that the plaintiff consumer received reasonably conspicuous notice of the Service Agreement (containing the arbitration clause), to which the plaintiff assented by checking the box required for account creation and continued use of the website.
State courts nationwide are grappling with spikes in debt collection lawsuits, according to two new reports from January Advisors and the National Center for State Courts (NCSC). Debt collection lawsuits account for a notable share of civil dockets in the United States each year, with up to 4.7 million cases filed in 2022, according to Pew calculations. Although claims slowed during the pandemic, recent data shows a sharp uptick in filings in 2023 and 2024—in many instances surpassing pre-pandemic levels.
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