Updated: June 2018

PHH Corp. v CFPB

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2015 charged PHH Corp., a mortgage lender, with illegally referred consumers to specific mortgage insurers in exchange for kickbacks from those insurers. The Bureau also issued a final order that prohibited PHH from violating the law and required it to pay $109 million to the Bureau.

PHH fought back with a lawsuit that questioned the Bureau’s constitutionality and in October 2016, a panel of the D.C. Circuit concluded both that the CFPB had misinterpreted the case, and also that its single-Director structure violated the constitutional separation of powers. Then, on Feb. 16, 2017, the D.C. Circuit granted a CFPB petition for rehearing by a full panel of judges (en banc). Consumer Action joined coalition partners and state attorneys general from around the country in an amicus brief asking the court to uphold the constitutionality of the Bureau and allow the agency to continue to protect consumers. The full D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments on May 24. Read the brief.

UPDATE: Consumers win appeal for CFPB independence (Jan. 31, 2018)