A United States Magistrate Judge for the United States District Court, Western District of New York, today issued his report and recommendation on the defendants’ motion to dismiss in Petersen et al. v. Chase Card Funding, LLC et al., No. 1:19-cv-00741 (W.D.N.Y. June 6, 2019).  The Magistrate Judge recommended dismissal of both the plaintiffs’ usury and unjust enrichment claims on preemption grounds, stating that “the preemption analysis boils down to this: does the application of New York’s usury statutes to these defendants ‘prevent’ or ‘significantly interfere’ with Chase USA’s power to sell or assign the receivables generated by its credit card accounts?”.  The Magistrate Judge answered this question in the affirmative, reasoning that “since applying New York’s usury statutes to defendants would prevent Chase USA’s ability to sell or assign the receivables from its credit card accounts, they are preempted.”
Continue Reading Magistrate Judge Recommends Dismissal in Chase Issuance Trust Usury Lawsuit

On October 31, 2019, in a lease dispute related to credit card processing equipment, a California appellate court held that the parties’ choice of New York forum for dispute resolution was unenforceable due to the existence of a pre-dispute waiver of a non-waivable right guaranteed by the California constitution, statutes, and case law interpreting the

In July, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (the “FDIC”) proposed a change (discussed here) to certain provisions of its securitization safe harbor rule (the “Rule”), which relates to the treatment of financial assets transferred in connection with a securitization or participation transaction.  The proposed change would eliminate the requirement under the Rule that disclosure documents for bank-sponsored securitizations not otherwise subject to Regulation AB’s disclosure requirements (i.e. non-public transactions) comply with Regulation AB.   This could significantly ease the compliance burden associated with non-public bank-sponsored ABS issuances, potentially resulting in a greater volume of such transactions.
Continue Reading Recent credit card ABS disclosure trends

The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act (CARD Act) requires the CFPB to prepare a biennial report to Congress regarding the consumer credit card market. On August 27th, the CFPB issued its fourth such report (previous reports were issued in 2013, 2015 and 2017) which describes the CFPB’s findings regarding, among other things, the