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Steven Kaplan is a partner in Mayer Brown’s Washington DC office and a member of the Consumer Financial Services group. He concentrates his practice on matters related to consumer financial products and represents clients in federal and state supervisory matters, investigations and enforcement proceedings. He also advises clients on compliance with federal and state laws governing licensing and practices of financial institutions, mortgage lenders, consumer finance companies, loan servicers, prepaid card issuers, payment system providers and secondary market participants. Steven acts as regulatory counsel in connection with investments or acquisitions related to consumer loans and other consumer financial products and performing regulatory compliance due diligence. Additionally, Steven assists with structuring operations and developing compliance management systems and due diligence programs and with litigation involving regulatory compliance matters.

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Following closely on the heels of a Georgia law enacted in May, Connecticut and Florida have become the latest states to enact laws requiring providers of small business financing to provide disclosures to recipients—and in Connecticut’s case, to require certain commercial finance providers to register with the state. We examine the unique and interesting provisions

Providers of commercial financing should take note that Georgia has become the fifth US state to enact small business financing disclosure requirements since California started the trend in 2018. Georgia Senate Bill 90 was signed by Governor Brian Kemp on May 1, 2023, and takes effect January 1, 2024. The Georgia law applies to transactions

The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has finalized its December 2022 preliminary determination that commercial finance disclosure laws recently enacted in California, New York, Utah and Virginia are not preempted by the federal Truth in Lending Act. The CFPB’s final determination confirms for a wide range of small business financers and brokers that they

Small business financers and brokers (“providers”) active in New York are officially on notice to finalize their preparations to comply with New York’s Commercial Finance Disclosure Law (“CFDL”) by August 1, 2023, the new effective date provided in final administrative regulations just issued on February 1 by the New York Department of Financial Services (“NYDFS”). 

State-chartered banks lending to Iowa residents will want to take note of an Assurance of Discontinuance entered into in December between the State of Iowa and an out-of-state bank to settle claims that the bank charged usurious rates of interest to Iowa consumers. The settlement also highlights the Iowa Attorney General’s interpretation of the state’s

Small business lenders hoping for federal intervention will be disappointed to learn that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) has reached a preliminary determination that New York’s new commercial financing disclosure law is not preempted by the federal Truth in Lending Act (“TILA”). The CFPB’s public notice indicates that it initially takes the same view

Marketplace lender Opportunity Financial, LLC (“OppFi”) has gone on the offensive against the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (“DFPI”) to protect its bank partnership program against challenge on a “true lender” theory. On March 7, 2022, OppFi filed suit against the DFPI to ask the state court to declare that FinWise Bank, a

On March 23, 2021, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed into law Senate Bill 1792, enacting the Predatory Loan Prevention Act (PLPA) and capping interest at an “all-in” 36% APR (similar to the Military Lending Act’s MAPR) for a variety of consumer financing, effective immediately. The PLPA uses an expansive definition of interest for the usury

On Tuesday, September 1, 2020, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the “CDC”) filed a notice of an agency order in the Federal Register titled Temporary Halt in Residential Evictions to Prevent the Further Spread of COVID-19 (the “Order”), which the CDC published on Friday, September 4, 2020. The Order prohibits landlords, residential

On Friday, the United States Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) finalized a regulation regarding the “Permissible Interest on Loans that are Sold, Assigned, or Otherwise Transferred” by national banks and federal savings associations. Initially proposed in November 2019, the regulation provides that interest on a loan that is permissible under provisions of