Media Coverage
Source: Daily Journal
Media Coverage
07.01.14
In a front-page feature in the Daily Journal, Christine Scheuneman, a litigation partner in Los Angeles who defends financial services companies, opined on recent civil litigation trends arising out of the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Formed in 2012, the bureau is now beginning to shed light on the financial products industry and that, Scheuneman suspects, may lead to new wave of plaintiffs’ litigation against the bureau’s targets. The CFPB, she said, has “broad powers and when they do an investigation it can be very in-depth and with a lot of detailed information. Certainly all that is fair game for plaintiffs’ attorneys.”
Financial services companies, she added, worry that CFPB enforcement actions could lead to “additional headaches” in the form of consumer litigation.
The CFPB filed its most recent report this spring. It reported that the bureau had initiated 31 enforcement actions between October 2013 and March 2014. Most were focused on mortgage loans, but other targets included credit card, consumer debt and debt relief schemes.
Still, while plaintiffs’ firms may salivate at the possibility of peeking into these investigations, they may not necessarily strike gold. “Many of the industries that touch consumers were ahead of the curve and saw this coming and did make changes to their businesses,” Scheuneman concluded.
Download: Daily Journal: "CFPB could be teeing up wave of civil litigation"