A group of consumer advocates have filed a lawsuit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, alleging it has “stacked” a taskforce with individuals who “uniformly represent industry views” and whose bias not only undermines its purpose but also violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
A copy of the complaint in the case of National Association of Consumer Advocates, United States Public Interest Research Group, and Kathleen Engel v. Kathleen Kraninger and CFPB can be accessed by clicking here.
For those of you who are unaware, the Federal Advisory Committee Act establishes requirements, such as ensuring that the committee is balanced between different points of view and that meetings be public, for any committee within the Executive Branch of the government.
The taskforce in question was created last October to “modernize” consumer protection laws. There was a call for interested parties to apply to be part of the taskforce, which was announced in January. It includes:
- Dr. J. Howard Beales, III, former Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission
- Dr. Thomas Durkin, Senior Economist (Retired) at the Federal Reserve Board
- L. Jean Noonan, former Associate Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection’s Credit Practice at the Federal Trade Commission
- William MacLeod, former Bureau Director at the Federal Trade Commission.
- Todd J. Zywicki, Professor of Law at George Mason University (GMU) Antonin Scalia Law School, Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute, and former Executive Director of the GMU Law and Economics Center
“A group of hand-picked industry lawyers and consultants that meets behind closed doors — with no consumer advocates or disparate points of view — is more appropriately called a Task Farce. But this Task Farce is no joke,” said U.S. PIRG Senior Director of Federal Consumer Programs Ed Mierzwinski, in a statement. “Not only is CFPB breaking the law, their actions continue to be dangerous for consumer protection.”
The complaint offers a lengthy explanation of the reasons why the CFPB was created and what has been done to “undermine” its mission since former Director Richard Cordray resigned in 2017.
“From the outset, and as set out further below, Defendants have violated FACA’s requirements at every turn, allowing the Taskforce to operate in secrecy and to represent only the deregulatory views of the financial services industry — without any regard for the views of consumer advocates that led to the creation of the CFPB and informed its fundamental purpose,” the plaintiffs argue in their complaint.