New Chief of Staff at CFPB was Staff Director of the House Financial Services Committee. The CFPB named a new chief of staff Jan. 5: Kristen Sutton Mork, who’s leaving her post as staff director of the House Financial Services Committee. The announcement did not come from the CFPB – it came from Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the HFSC, who mentioned it in an email sent to members of the media.... Republican Senator Wants Leandra English Investigated. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-WI, reportedly has asked the U.S. Office of Special Counsel to probe Leandra English’s move to “burrow” into a “career position” at the CFPB. One major broadcast news organization, citing a letter from Johnson, reported last week that Johnson asserted her move was “hastily approved” as part of “a flawed vetting process” in the wake of President Trump’s election. The report could not be immediately confirmed.

The legal wheels continue to turn in the personal efforts of CFPB Deputy Director Leandra English to overturn President Trump’s appointment of Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to serve simultaneously as acting director of the bureau. More activity is slated this week before Judge Timothy Kelly, whom Trump appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Circuit earlier this year. Additional legal briefs are due and a hearing has been scheduled. Despite losing in her bid for a temporary restraining order, English has since filed for a preliminary injunction to prevent defendants Trump and Mulvaney from “appointing, causing the appointment of, or recognizing the appointment of an acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection ...

When Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney assumed control of the CFPB as acting director last month, he suggested he would like to see the bureau be less adversarial towards the financial services industry and be more accommodating. Since then, the bureau under Mulvaney’s directorship has pulled in its claws somewhat in a few enforcement actions, at least one of which is mortgage related. In this particular case, back in the spring of 2015, the CFPB sued Ohio-based Nationwide Biweekly Administration, Loan Payment Administration, and their owner, Daniel Lipsky, in federal district court. The regulator had accused them of misrepresenting the interest savings consumers would achieve through a biweekly mortgage payment program and misleading consumers about its cost....

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, who recently raised some questions about the ethics standards that apply to CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney and members of his Office of Management and Budget staff who are doing double duty with both agencies, also has some questions about how certain record-keeping and communication requirements are going to be carried out in the unusual set-up. “Given the dual roles for Mr. Mulvaney and his staff, I am also concerned about record-keeping and other procedures in place to ensure that their work remains separate and subject to appropriate Presidential Records Act, Freedom of Information Act, and other recordkeeping and transparency requirements, and is categorized correctly for these purposes,” Warren said. Her concerns were raised in a ...

Democrat state attorneys general from 16 states and the District of Columbia wrote President Trump earlier this month, vowing to ramp up their enforcement efforts if the bureau backs off under Acting Director Mick Mulvaney, and taking issue with his appointment to the position. “As you know, state attorneys general have express statutory authority to enforce federal consumer protection laws, as well as the consumer protection laws of our respective states,” the AGs said. “We will continue to enforce those laws vigorously regardless of changes to CFPB’s leadership or agenda.” They reminded the president that, as attorneys general, they retain broad authority to investigate and prosecute individuals or companies that deceive, scam or otherwise harm consumers. “If incoming CFPB leadership ...

A new report from the Office of the Inspector General of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. found that examiners in the agency’s Division of Depositor and Consumer Protection need to do a better and more consistent job of reviewing lenders’ compliance with the CFPB’s ability-to-repay and loan originator compensation rules. The ATR rule directed most mortgage lenders to make a reasonable and good-faith determination, at or before loan consummation, that a consumer would have a reasonable ability to repay a residential mortgage loan according to its terms. Some lenders and loan programs are exempt from this requirement. The LO comp rule placed limits on loan originator compensation and imposed new requirements on loan originators. Both rules took effect Jan. 10, 2014....

Congress on Thursday passed a stopgap-spending bill to prevent a potential government shutdown and to give lawmakers time to negotiate crucial issues. The House voted 235-193 to pass the measure. A short time later, the Senate quickly approved it 81-14. The temporary spending bill will keep the government running through Dec. 22. The continuing resolution or CR, that has kept the government open would have expired on Dec. 8. Both the House and Senate are scheduled to adjourn on Dec. 15. Congress will need to pass a final appropriations bill or another continuing resolution to keep the government operating after Dec. 22. Despite differences over tax reform, FY 2018 budget, immigration, health care and other issues, lawmakers do not want a shutdown, mortgage industry sources said. Republicans, in particular, hope to enact their $1.5 trillion tax package by Christmas. On the other hand, ...

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s choice to serve as acting director of the CFPB, assumed control of the agency Monday, Nov. 27, 2017, and quickly established a dramatically different direction for the agency, one far less hostile to the financial services industry. In his first press conference as acting director, one week ago, Mulvaney shook things up while trying to strike a more balanced approach, one far less hostile towards the financial services community. “This is an ordinary course of business in Washington, DC. What you’re witnessing today at the CFPB happens at every single agency every couple of years, which is a transition,” he said. [Includes a timeline chart.]

During his first press conference as acting director of the CFPB, Mick Mulvaney spelled out the charge he was given in taking control of the agency, and elaborated upon his view of the bureau as a regulatory entity that has overstepped its bounds. “[President Trump] wants me to fix it,” Mulvaney began. “He wants me to get it back to the point where it can protect people without trampling on capitalism, without choking off the access to financial services that are so critical to so many folks.” He then cited the “many folks who are in the lower and middle classes, folks who are trying to start their own businesses, people who are trying to break out, people who are ...

The biggest CFPB story of the year – which appointee is authorized to head up the agency in the case of a resignation of the director – involves competing legal arguments interpretations of two federal laws.Deputy Director Leandra English is relying on the CFPB succession provision of the Dodd-Frank Act, while Acting Director Mick Mulvaney and the Trump White House are relying on the text of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. The crux of their respective arguments to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia follows. English’s brief to the court declared: “The Dodd-Frank Act is clear on this point: It mandates that the deputy director ‘shall serve as the acting director in the absence or unavailability of the