Archives for February 2017

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) posted a blog earlier this month by John McNamara, Assistant Director of Consumer Lending, Reporting, and Collections Markets and Seth Frotman, the CFPB’s Student Loan Ombudsman, announcing that they are seeking comment on an initiative that would look at how consumers repay student debt and track student loan industry activities relevant to consumers in financial distress. They are proposing to collect student loan data from the largest student loan servicers in order to inform their ongoing work to protect “at-risk” student loan borrowers.

The proposal includes looking at the following:

• The total size of the student loan market. This proposed project would seek to provide us with a more complete view of the student loan market. Currently, there is no public source for information about the private student loan market, including the number of consumers with private student loans or how these consumers manage their debt when they run into trouble. The Department of Education continues to expand access to data about certain federal student loans, publishing basic, summary information about the number of consumers that take out these loans to pay for college and how consumers manage this debt. This proposed project would build on the Department of Education’s work to give us a better understanding and a more complete view of the student loan market as a whole.
• Borrowers with federal student loans who seek to repay their loans based on how much money they make (known as Income-Driven Repayment or IDR plans). We’ve highlighted the many servicing roadblocks that borrowers may face as they struggle to access or keep an affordable, income-driven payment. This proposed project would provide the Bureau key data on the number of borrowers who apply to enroll in or recertify their income and family size under these plans and the outcomes of these efforts.
• Borrowers who face the greatest risk of default. We know that certain borrowers, including those who did not complete their degree and those who recently defaulted on a student loan, may be at higher risk of future distress. Last year, the Department of Education, in consultation with the Bureau and the Department of the Treasury, called for new servicing reforms as part of a new vision for student loan servicing. This data would help provide insight on how servicers are helping the most vulnerable borrowers and keeping borrowers on track for long-term success. 
• Borrowers with private student loans who experience financial distress. Distressed private student loan borrowers tell us that their student loan servicers provide little information or help when borrowers experience trouble keeping up with their monthly payment, and that they struggle to gain access to affordable loan modification options. Data provided through this proposed initiative would help us understand the range of options private student loan servicers make available to borrowers when they face student debt distress.

You can see the full proposal and Request for Information here. Written comments must be received by April 17, 2017.

On January 30, 2017 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) case that could have far reaching ramifications on the issues of express consent and revocation of consent to be contacted. The case is Van Patten v. Vertical Fitness Group, LLC (Case No. 14-55980, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit). 

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Background

On March 21, 2009, Plaintiff-Appellant Bradley Van Patten visited a Gold’s Gym franchise in Green Bay, Wisconsin to obtain information about a gym membership.

During the visit, Van Patten submitted a desk courtesy card to the gym, wherein he wrote his demographic, financial, and contact information to determine whether he was prequalified to become a member. In this data Van Patten listed his cell phone number.

Van Patten then met with the gym’s manager to discuss the possibility of a membership. During this conversation, the manager filled out a Gold’s Gym Membership Agreement on behalf of Van Patten, which Van Patten signed. The manager wrote Van Patten’s cell phone number in the phone number field. Within three days of opening his gym membership, Van Patten called Gold’s Gym to cancel his membership. Van Patten moved to California in the summer of 2009, but he kept his Wisconsin cell phone number.

Vertical Fitness owned or managed several of the Gold’s Gym franchises. Although Vertical Fitness did not own the gym Van Patten joined, it operated and managed the gym. In the spring of 2012, many of the Gold’s Gym franchises in Wisconsin and Minnesota, including the gym that Van Patten had joined, ended their franchise relationships with Gold’s Gym and became “Xperience Fitness” gyms. Vertical Fitness owned the “Xperience Fitness” brand and trademark.

After the brand change, Vertical Fitness turned to its marketing partner, Defendant-Appellee Advecor, Inc., (Advecor) to help announce the gym’s brand change to current and former gym members and invite members to return. One such announcement was made via text messages. Vertical Fitness gave the phone numbers of former or inactive gym members to Advecor, and Advecor sent the text messages. Van Patten received his first text message on May 14, 2012. The message read: 

“Golds [sic] Gym is now Xperience Fitness. Come back for $9.99/mo, no commitment. Enter for a chance to win a Nissan Xterra! Visit Myxperiencefitness.com/giveaway” 

He received a similar text on June 25, 2012.

Van Patten filed a putative class action lawsuit arising out of the text messages on June 28, 2012. He alleged that the unauthorized text messages Defendants sent “caused consumers actual harm,” including “the aggravation that necessarily accompanies wireless spam” and that consumers “pay their cell phone service providers for the receipt of such wireless spam.” Van Patten asserted three causes of action: (1) violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, 47 U.S.C. § 227; (2) violation of California Business and Professions Code § 17538.41; and (3) violation of California Business and Professions Code § 17200. 

The district court granted Van Patten leave to file a first amended complaint, in which he added Advecor as a defendant and added the allegation that he received two text messages. 

The district court granted Van Patten’s motion for class certification, but on May 20, 2014, the court granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants on all of Van Patten’s claims. 

On appeal, Van Patten argued that the district court erred by granting Defendants’ motions for summary judgment on all three of his claims. A copy of the court’s opinion can be found here. 

The Court’s Opinion

The three judge panel for the Ninth Circuit concluded that, in this case, the plaintiff gave prior express consent to receive the text messages at issue and did not effectively revoke his consent. The panel affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the Defendants. 

On the issue of “express consent” the court held: 

“Express consent is not an element of a plaintiff’s prima facie case but is an affirmative defense for which the defendant bears the burden of proof. The district court correctly stated that prior express consent is a complete defense to Van Patten’s TCPA claim. Van Patten v. Vertical Fitness Grp., LLC, 22 F. Supp. 3d 1069, 1073 (S.D. Cal. 2014). 

Because the TCPA does not define the phrase “prior express consent,” we turn to the FCC’s Orders and Rulings, which interpret and clarify the term. Defendants rely on In re Rules & Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, 7 F.C.C. Rcd. 8752 (Oct. 16, 1992) (the “1992 Order”) and stress one sentence in particular: “[P]ersons who knowingly release their phone numbers have in effect given their invitation or permission to be called at the number which they have given, absent instructions to the contrary.” 7 F.C.C. Rcd. at 8769. 

In our view, an effective consent is one that relates to the same subject matter as is covered by the challenged calls or text messages. Taking into account the statutory language that prior consent must be “express” and the TCPA’s legislative history, we do not read the 1992 Order to mean that the FCC has determined that providing a phone number in itself means that the consumer has expressly consented to contact for any purpose whatsoever. Instead, the consent must be considered to relate to the type of transaction that evoked it. 

We conclude that the FCC has established no rule that a consumer who gives a phone number to a company has consented to be contacted for any reason. Instead, FCC orders and rulings show that the transactional context matters in determining the scope of a consumer’s consent to contact.

In this case, we hold that as a matter of law Van Patten gave prior express consent to receive Defendants’ text messages. He gave his cellular telephone number for the purpose of a gym membership contract with a Gold’s Gym franchised gym. Van Patten giving his phone number for the purpose of his gym membership agreement did not amount to consent to be contacted for all purposes. Under the logic of the FCC’s orders, Van Patten gave his consent to being contacted about some things, such as follow-up questions about his gym membership application, but not to all communications. The scope of his consent included the text messages’ invitation to “come back” and reactivate his gym membership. The text messages at issue here were part of a campaign to get former and inactive gym members to return, and thus related to the reason Van Patten gave his number in the first place, to apply for a gym membership.”

insideARM Perspective

This is a very interesting case on the issues of “express consent” and effective “revocation of express consent.”  The court found that the consumer, by providing his cell phone number on a “courtesy card” (whatever that might be) and then allowing the gym manager to add his cell number in a membership application that the consumer signed, had “expressly consented” to marketing test messages.  

Then the court held that cancelling the gym membership was not a “revocation of consent” to be contacted with marketing text messages on his cell phone in the future.  

This case greatly expands the possibilities available to defend TCPA cases in the future on the issues of “express consent” and effective “revocation of consent.”  It will bear watching to see how defendants in future cases use this decision in their arguments.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is hosting a free webinar today from 2–3 p.m. EST, to talk about a new CFPB report on consumer views and experiences in debt collection. The CFPB announcement says this survey is the first of its kind, and the most in-depth analysis currently available of consumers’ encounters with the debt collection industry. The bureau also promises stories about consumers’ personal experiences in debt collection, as well as more about new debt collection resources.

Email CFPB_FinEx@consumerfinance.gov to sign up for the webinar.

insideARM Perspective

It is unclear when this webinar was scheduled. We couldn’t find any formal announcement — just a paragraph on the Adult Education page of its website highlighting that it is today (essentially what we’ve posted above). We are also not aware of a new report other than the one that was released last month, which we wrote about, that was based on results of the consumer survey conducted in 2014-2015.

The survey was based on a sample selected by the Bureau’s Consumer Credit Panel (CCP), which is a 1-in-48 random and deidentified sample of credit records maintained by one of th etop three nationwide credit repositories.

During the comment period related to that survey, industry groups, including ACA International, urged the CFPB to scrap it as it was proposed, saying “The CFPB’s justification of the need for the information request is lacking, and the proposed survey is conceptually deficient.” ACA further stressed that “the proposed survey would not yield statistically sound data and therefore will not enable the CFPB to improve its understanding of the debt collection market in support of potential rule writing.”

The American Bankers Association and the Consumer Bankers Association also expressed concerns with the survey, saying the revised version “only perfunctorily responds to stakeholder comments and reflects very little change to the Survey instrument.  It fails to resolve material design and methodological shortcomings necessary to ensure that the data generated by the Survey will have practical utility for the debt collection rulemaking.”

In spite of industry objections, the Bureau moved forward.

Also released in January was a web page to highlight personal stories of consumers about their experiences with debt collection, as well as a study about a segment of the debt sales market.

On February 16, 2017, a judge from the United State District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri dismissed a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) claim against a debt collector that had made over 100 debt collection calls to the wrong consumer’s cell phone. The case is Schlattman v. Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC (PRA) (Case No.   4:16cv1183, United States District Court, Eastern District of Missouri). 

Background 

Plaintiff Robert Schlattmann brought an action under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and TCPA against defendant Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC (PRA), alleging that PRA called him more than 100 times for a debt that Schlattmann did not owe. 

Defendant moved to dismiss Count II of plaintiff’s amended complaint (the TCPA claim) for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).

Editor’s Note: The purpose of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim is to test the legal sufficiency of a complaint so as to eliminate those actions “which are fatally flawed in their legal premises and deigned to fail, thereby sparing litigants the burden of unnecessary pretrial and trial activity.

Plaintiff had alleged that PRA began calling plaintiff’s residential telephone number, ending in -8996, from several different telephone numbers on December 1, 2014. The phone calls continued through June 11, 2016 and totaled over one hundred in number; however, the defendant’s phone calls were allegedly intended to collect on a debt that plaintiff did not owe. Plaintiff alleges that he never entered into an agreement by which he consented to be contacted by telephone by defendant, and he did not have a preexisting or current business relationship with defendant. 

Count II of the complaint claimed that PRA’s conduct violated the TCPA, 47 U.S.C. § 227, et seq. and 47 C.F.R. 61.1200, et seq., by knowingly and willfully placing non-emergency prerecorded telephone calls to plaintiff’s phone without express authorized consent of plaintiff, without an established business relationship, and without an exemption and/or without a commercial purpose in violation of 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(B). 

PRA moved to dismiss Count II because it says its actions were exempted from the TCPA provision relied upon by plaintiff. The TCPA provision prohibits initiating “any telephone call to any residential telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the called party, unless the call is initiated for emergency purposes, is made solely pursuant to the collection of a debt owed to our guaranteed by the United States, or is exempted by rule or order by the [Federal Communications] Commission under paragraph (2)(B).” 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(B). 

Paragraph (2)(B) provides: 

“that the “Commission shall prescribe regulations to implement the requirements of this subsection,” and the Commission’s regulations provide that § 227(b)(1)(B) does not apply to a call if it is “made for a commercial purpose but does not include or introduce an advertisement or constitute telemarketing.” 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(a)(3)(iii).” Emphasis added.

The Memorandum and Order dismissing the TCPA claim was written by the Honorable Stephen N. Limbaugh. Judge Limbaugh wrote:

“Numerous other courts have held that this regulation exempts collection calls made to non-debtors because they are commercial calls that do not include an unsolicited advertisement.

Although plaintiff suggests he does not know what defendant’s business is or for what purpose it called him, he at the same times alleges that the defendant called plaintiff “as a debt collector to collect a consumer debt.” The complaint does suggest, in the alternative, that defendant was calling plaintiff “as a non-debt collector, but for an unlawful purpose, including for an unsolicited advertisement or telephone solicitation.” Such an allegation would remove defendant’s conduct from the regulatory exemption.

Plaintiff’s conclusion that the calls were by a “non-debt collector” is not supported by the necessary facts to escape the TCPA exemption because he does not allege that the calls “include[d] or introduce[d] an advertisement or constitute[d] telemarketing.” Instead, nearly every allegation involves defendant’s making collection calls, not advertising or telemarketing calls. Although plaintiff complains of “factual uncertainty” as to the purpose of defendant’s calls and the need for discovery, plaintiff had the burden to plead a plausible claim. The plaintiff’s TCPA claim is not plausible on its face and will be dismissed.”

insideARM Perspective

This is not the typical TCPA case.  When we think of TCPA claims we generally think of calls to a cell phone using an Automatic Telephone Dialing System (ATDS). In this case the calls were made to the wrong person. The calls were made to “plaintiff’s residential telephone number.” That phone number was apparently not a cell phone. 

The resulting Memorandum and Order, while positive for PRA and the industry should be viewed in relation to the specific facts involved in this case.

Yesterday the Consumer Financial Data Rights (CFDR) group, an industry consortium supporting the consumer’s right to unfettered access to their financial data, submitted a response to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) request for information (RFI) regarding consumer access to financial records.

In their comment letter, the CFDR advocates for eliminating restrictions on the consumer’s ability to access and permission their financial data, without hidden limitations, and for the financial services industry in the United States to embrace an open application program interface (“Open API”) framework.

The CFDR is a new industry group formed by some of the most recognized companies in the financial sector, including Affirm, Betterment, Digit, Envestnet | Yodlee, Kabbage, Personal Capital, Varo Money, Capsilon, Earnup, Petal, Sipree, and SoFi. 

“As a group, we fully support the creation of an Open API framework to enable financial innovation and improve the financial health of consumers,” said Anil Arora, CEO of Envestnet | Yodlee. “Over 17 years ago, Envestnet | Yodlee pioneered direct and open connectivity to financial data via APIs. Now we strive to work collaboratively with financial institutions, fintech service providers, and regulators to provide consumers with access to powerful, technology-based tools that can help them improve their financial well-being.”

While some institutions have moved toward an approach that allows banks to restrict access to the consumer’s financial data and potentially limit the consumer’s ability to share their data, the CFDR supports the consumer’s right to access their financial data as codified by Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act. This right enables consumers to use innovative products and services that improve their financial health.

“Without clear regulatory requirements, the CFDR believes large banks and other financial institutions will continually seek to control access available for consumers to share their financial data, and restrict how that information may be used and shared,” said Jon Stein, founder and CEO of Betterment. “The CFDR supports the consumer’s right to decide which pieces of their own financial data they’re able to access and permission, which is critical to empowering consumers with the necessary tools to improve their financial outcomes.” 

insideARM Perspective

The CFDR takes the position that the consumer owns her data, and should be able to control access to it. insideARM is in full agreement with this position, and would urge the CFPB and other regulators not to forget about data post-charge off.  

Currently, in most cases, once an account is charged off, limited data about the account moves onto a different system, and pre-charge off data is no longer accessible to the consumer — or to the debt collector. This causes significant confusion (exactly what do I owe, and what is it for?), frustration (what do you mean you can’t tell me… and now I have to wait with this issue hanging over my head?), and often a very awkward interaction between the consumer and collector. The lack of transparency hurts all parties. 

NEW YORK, N.Y. — KM² Solutions, a leading US-based, near shore Contact Center company has opened a new contact center in Santo Domingo, expanding their presence at this near shore location.  The company has been operating a center in the Dominican Republic for the past 3 years.

Client programs at the center include customer service, loan processing (pre-funding, originations, verifications, welcome calls), loan servicing and 1^st party collections, back-office services, and other functions for clients in the financial services and healthcare markets. 

David Kreiss, KM² President & CEO said “we’re excited to serve our clients from our new and expanded operations in the Dominican Republic.  We look forward to delivering exceptional services for our clients from our Santo Domingo center and providing the quality and productive services, along with the cost efficiencies they expect.  The new center is located in a brand new, state-of-the-art facility in the University Free Trade Zone, a convenient location providing easy accessibility to metro and buses for our agents and management team.” 

KM² will begin supporting their existing clients supported from the Dominican Republic at the new and expanded center immediately.  The center is located at Avenida Jose Contreras, #41, Zona Universitaria, D.N., Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

About KM² Solutions

With contact centers throughout the Caribbean and Central America, KM² Solutions provides the highest caliber of cost-effective bilingual solutions for customer care, sales and retention, collections, technical support, and back office solutions.  

KM² Solutions was recently awarded Frost & Sullivan’s Central American and Caribbean Contact Center Outsourcing Value Leadership Award.  This honor is presented to companies that demonstrate excellence in operational execution and consistently deepen client relationships by offering superior services that deliver a clear, demonstrable ROI. 

For more information, please contact Joe Wester, Executive VP Sales at 262.790.2656 or joe.wester@km2solutions.com

For nine years insideARM has celebrated the Best Places to Work in Collections. For our 10th anniversary, we felt it was time to update the program and, in fact, we have used our top story position today to tell you about it. insideARM does not earn a profit on this program (participation is free).  We simply feel it is an important and positive way that we can support the industry.

Beginning in 2017, Best Places to Work in Collections has become Best Call Centers to Work For

So many organizations are now doing first party collections and customer care, and many creditors have their own call centers doing collections work. This updated program provides a way for all of these organizations (of just about any size) to participate.

Who is eligible?

In addition to collection firms of all sizes, creditor and business process outsourcing (BPO) call center operations are eligible to participate.

Participation in the program is free. The deadline to register is THIS Friday, February 24. Registration only takes a moment. Winners will be featured on insideARM, as well as at this year’s First Party Summit on June 5-7, and will earn bragging rights that you can use with clients, regulators, employees, and prospective recruits.

Our rigorous evaluation process is managed by the independent firm Best Companies Group, which runs programs in 24 states, 9 regions, and 14 industries, as well as 12 programs across Africa, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

As we all know, even a small improvement in retention today can lead to a meaningful addition to the bottom line. Employee satisfaction has a dramatic impact on attrition.  Whether winners or not, all participants can receive a veritable blueprint for improving employee satisfaction at their particular firm, based on their own employee feedback. 

So what are you waiting for?

Sign up now to participate in the program that celebrates excellence among call center work environments in care, collections, and outsourcing. It only takes a moment to register. The benefits of participation will last for years.

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This article previously appeared on Venable.com. It was co-authored by Daniel S. Blynn,  Evan R. Minsberg, and Peter S. Frechette, and is republished here with permission.

On January 22, 2017, several parties filed a petition for rulemaking and declaratory rulings regarding the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The petitioners are requesting that the FCC issue a rule that, if passed, would eliminate the “prior express consent” standard for non-solicitation calls to cell phones using an autodialer or pre-recorded message.

Currently, the prior express consent standard for non-solicitation calls to cell phones has been interpreted by the FCC to include consent resulting from a party’s providing a telephone number to the caller. Consumers can therefore provide prior express consent to receive what are often urgent and highly important calls and text messages, by including their cell phone number on an application or other form, or by providing the number to the caller orally.

There are certain exceptions. For instance, Congress amended the TCPA to exempt autodialed calls “made solely to collect a debt owed to or guaranteed by the United States.” For financial institutions, the FCC’s current TCPA rule exempts time-sensitive calls and text messages (including messages and notifications of fraud, identity theft, data security breaches and remedies, and money transfers). However, even this exemption includes a consent requirement—calls and text messages must be sent “only to the wireless telephone number provided by the customer of the financial institution.” Moreover, the calls or messages must be limited in number (no more than three) and length (one minute/160 characters). The calls or messages are restricted to the exempted purpose, and must include an opt-out option that must be honored immediately.

In place of the current standard, the proposed rule would require “prior express written consent,” the same standard that solicitation calls require. The prior express written consent standard presents a much higher compliance hurdle—for example, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau has indicated that, for prior written consent to be effective:

• The agreement must be in writing;
• The agreement must bear the signature of the person who will receive the advertisement/telemarketing calls/texts;
• The language of the agreement must clearly authorize the seller to deliver or cause to be delivered ads or telemarketing messages via autodialed calls or robocalls/robotexts;
• The written agreement must include the telephone number to which the person signing authorizes advertisements or telemarketing messages to be delivered; and
• The written agreement must include a clear and conspicuous disclosure informing the person signing that:
  • By executing the agreement, the person signing authorizes the seller to deliver or cause to be delivered ads or telemarketing messages via autodialed calls or robocalls/robotexts; and
  • The person signing the agreement is not required to sign the agreement (directly or indirectly) or agree to enter into such an agreement as a condition of purchasing any property, goods, or services.

Creditors, loan servicers, debt collection companies, and other financial institutions that communicate frequently with consumers are highly exposed to TCPA and often FDCPA liability, as well as various state laws that impose restrictions on calling. Banks and other large financial institutions can also be exposed to liability indirectly through their vendors. The new rule may have a crippling effect on businesses relying on the current rule. The FCC has issued a public notice seeking comments by March 10, 2017.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. –- The members of Receivables Management Association elected their 2017 Board of Directors last week at the association’s annual conference, “Twenty Years of Connections”.

The 2017 officers and directors include:

• Mark Naiman, Absolute Resolutions Corp., President
• David Paris, Jefferson Capital Systems, President Elect
• Marian Sangalang, The Bureaus, Inc., Treasurer
• James Mastriani, Velocity Portfolio Group, Secretary
• Todd Lansky, Resurgence Capital, LLC, Past President
• Kelly Knepper-Stephens, Stoneleigh Recovery Associates, Director
• Adam Parks, Investment Retrievers, Director
• Brett Soldevila, Security Credit Services, LLC, Director
• Phillip Stenger, Capital Alliance Financial, LLC, Director
• Anne Thomas, Cavalry Portfolio Services, LLC, Director

Mark Naiman currently serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Absolute Resolutions Corporation in San Diego, California, overseeing all facets of operations, including management of personnel and creation and administration of policies. Naiman has been involved in the stratification of over 700 individual transactions, as well as the analysis behind pricing and expected liquidations for over 17 billion in purchased accounts. This is his fourth year serving on the association Board of Directors.

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“Mark’s commitment to the industry over the years has been invaluable,” said Jan Stieger, Executive Director of Receivables Management Association. “He has recently served as Chair on the Fundraising Committee and Co-chair on the State Legislative and Conference Committees. His dedication to transparency and leading by example aligns beautifully with the association’s overall mission.”

While the industry prepares for a year ahead with optimism, Naiman is prepared to lead the association and its membership in its efforts to work with regulators and set the global standard for consumer protection and professional practices.

Helping with the strategic initiatives ahead is the new Board of Directors, which for the first time includes a Director from a Certified collection agency. “The talent and experience on this newly elected Board positions us well for what is to come,” said Naiman. “I look forward to working closely with them as we open new markets to our members, advocate for fair regulation, and prepare successful educational events. Having a Certified collection agency on the Board will broaden our collective perspective, which brings value to the association.”

About Receivables Management Association (formerly DBA International)

Receivables Management Association is the nonprofit trade association that represents more than 575 companies that purchase performing and nonperforming receivables on the secondary market. The Receivables Management Certification Program and Code of Ethics set the global standard within the receivables industry due to its rigorous uniform industry standards of best practice which focus on the protection of the consumer. Receivables Management Association provides its members with extensive networking, educational, and business development opportunities in asset classes that span numerous industries. The association continually sets the standard in the receivables management industry through its highly effective grassroots advocacy, conferences, committees, task forces, publications, webinars, teleconferences, and breaking news alerts. Founded in 1997 as Debt Buyers Association, Receivables Management Association is headquartered in Sacramento, California.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has granted the petition by the CFPB for a rehearing en banc in the case of PHH Corporation, et. al., v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The court also ordered that the judgment filed October 11, 2016 would be vacated, and the oral argument before the en banc court will be heard on Wednesday May 24, 2017. 

The court requested that parties address the following in their briefs:

1. Is the CFPB’s structure as a single-Director independent agency consistent with Article II of the Constitution and, if not, is the proper remedy to sever the for-cause provision of the statute?
2. May the court appropriately avoid deciding that consitutional question given the panel’s ruling on the statutory issues in this case?
3. If the en banc court, which has today separately ordered en banc consideration of Lucia v. SEC, 832 F .3d 277 (D.C. Cir. 2016), concludes in that case that the administrative law judge who handled that case was an inferior officer rather than an employee, what is the appropriate disposition of this case?

insideARM has published extensively on the progress of this case, including the following:

• Feb 14, 2017 – Democrats and Consumer Groups Seek Reconsideration in PHH Case
• Feb 1, 2017 – PHH Files Supplemental Response to CFPB’s Rehearing petition; Opposes State AGs’ Motion to Intervene
• Jan 4, 2017 – Flurry of Activity in the PHH Corp. CFPB Constitutionality Case
• Dec 8, 2016 – Group of 10 Consumer Advocates File Amicus Brief in Case on Constitutionality of CFPB Structure
• Oct 12, 2016 – How the PHH Decision Could Limit CFPB’s Enforcement Powers in Two Critical Ways
• April 19, 2016 – CFPB’s Constitutionality and Director’s Interpretation Challenged
• April 13, 2016 – Appeals Court Offers Sympathetic Ear to Argument that CFPB Structure is Unconstitutional
• Jan 25, 2016 – Federal Hearing Scheduled in Case Challenging CFPB Authority