The Fifth Circuit recently ruled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) funding structure is unconstitutional, casting doubt on all of the agency’s actions. But the CFPB is as active as ever. Mayer Brown lawyers Ori Lev, Chris Leach and Christa Bieker discuss the Fifth Circuit’s ruling and its implications as well as the agency’s recent policy, enforcement, and supervisory activities.

Continue Reading CFPB Update—Constitutional Crisis or Business as Usual?

Utah has followed California and New York by enacting its own Truth in Lending-like commercial financing disclosure law, but with an additional twist—Utah’s new law has a registration requirement. On March 24, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed SB 183 into law, with an effective date of January 1, 2023. We discuss how this new law fits into the recent trend of states enacting commercial financing disclosure laws, the companies that are subject to and exempt from the Utah law, the law’s registration obligation, the disclosures that a commercial financer must provide before consummating a transaction, and additional details and takeaways in Mayer Brown’s Legal Update.

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 Utah-chartered bank, is the true lender of loans facilitated through OppFi’s online platform and funded by the bank. Read more about OppFi’s action and other recent activity on the true lender front at the federal and state level in Mayer Brown’s Legal Update.

In December 2021 the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) and the International Accounting Standards Board (“IASB”) released their proposed amendments to their accounting standards that will require buyers of goods/services who use supplier finance programs/arrangements[1] in respect of their payables to disclose key terms of those supplier finance programs in their financial statements.

Continue Reading Our Views on the Proposed FASB and IFRS Payables Reporting Rules

The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) recently implemented amendments to most fee-bearing forms and related rules with a stated goal of modernizing filing fee disclosure and enhancing the validation speed and accuracy of filing fee amounts. Most of the rule changes went into effect on January 31, 2022, and directly affect shelf registration statement filings and prospectus filings made after such date.

Continue Reading SEC Adopts Amendments to Change the Format and Procedure on Filing Fee Disclosures

Earlier this week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) won an important court ruling in a long-running case against student loan securitization trusts. The case has a long (and for the CFPB, somewhat ignoble) history. The CFPB first filed suit against 15 Delaware statutory student loan securitization trusts (the “Trusts”) in September 2017. The complaint alleged that the Trusts, through the actions of their servicers and sub-servicers, engaged in unfair and deceptive debt collection and litigation practices. Along with the complaint, the CFPB filed a purported consent judgment that the CFPB represented to the Court had been executed by the defendants. As we’ve previously discussed, in an embarrassing setback, the district court denied the CFPB’s motion to enter the consent judgment, finding that the attorneys who executed it on behalf of the defendant Trusts were not authorized to do so by the proper trust parties (and that, with respect to at least some of the Trusts, the CFPB knew that the proper parties had not consented). The CFPB was therefore left to litigate a case that it thought it had settled. Subsequently, after the Supreme Court held that the CFPB’s structure was unconstitutional because it was headed by a single director removable by the President only for cause, the district court dismissed the CFPB’s case without prejudice, holding that the CFPB did not have the power to bring the case when it did due to its structural defect. We discussed that ruling here.

Continue reading on Mayer Brown’s Consumer Financial Services Review blog.

 

As we discussed in a previous post, last October the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) added the development of guidance on disclosure requirements with respect to trade payables programs to their agenda.  At the same meeting, FASB explicitly decided not to address the issue of how trade payables programs should be characterized for accounting purposes – a separate issue from disclosure that may be taken up by FASB in the future.

In the year since FASB voted to take up the issue of disclosure requirements for trade payables programs, the most significant development was the June 2021 decision to include in FASB’s draft proposal a requirement that companies with payables programs disclose the key terms of the programs, the total confirmed amounts payable under the programs and a description of where those amounts are presented in the balance sheet.  This is intended by FASB to provide investors with a broader view of certain companies’ liquidity positions.

At a board meeting on September 22nd, FASB took another step forward, voting in favor of a requirement that companies utilizing trade payables programs include a roll-forward of amounts confirmed under those programs in their annual disclosures. However, the board voted against developing any specific disclosure requirements for interim reporting periods.

The next step in the process is expected to be for FASB to develop a draft proposal setting forth in detail their proposed disclosure requirements, which is anticipated before the end of 2021.  A 90-day public comment period will follow the release of the draft proposal, after which FASB will develop its final guidance.  Given the longstanding and extensive use of payables programs by many large corporations, no doubt industry watchers will keep a close eye on FASB’s next moves related to payables programs.

The New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has issued “pre-proposed” rules under New York’s commercial financing disclosure law that was enacted at the end of 2020.  The pre-proposed rules are 45 pages in length and were posted on the NYDFS website on September 21. Comments on the pre-proposed outreach rules are due by October 1. There will be a longer comment period once a proposed rule is published in the State Register. The NYDFS is aiming to finalize the rules before the law takes effect on January 1, 2022.

Continue Reading NYDFS Issues Pre-Proposed Rules to Implement New Commercial Financing Disclosure Law

Following on from our April 2020 post (where we discussed the call from certain accounting firms and others for guidance from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) on the treatment of trade payables programs) and our October 2020 post (where we provided an update on the FASB’s proposals in response), on June 23, 2021, the IFRS International Accounting Standards Board (“IASB”) tentatively agreed to add a narrow-scope standard-setting project in respect of “supplier finance arrangements” to its work plan with the intention of amending certain IFRS and IAS standards to include additional disclosure requirements and clarifications in respect of “supplier finance arrangements.” Continue Reading Update on IFRS Disclosure Requirements for Supplier Finance Arrangements

The Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities (the “Joint Committee” and the “ESAs“, respectively) has published a report on the implementation and functioning of the EU Securitisation Regulation (the “EUSR“) on 17 May 2021 (the “Report“).

The Report has been published pursuant to Article 44 of the Securitisation Regulation, which required the Joint Committee to publish a report by 1 January 2021 (and every three years thereafter) on (a) the implementation of the requirements for “STS” (simple, transparent and standardised) securitisations, (b) an assessment of the actions taken by the EU competent authorities on material risks and vulnerabilities and the actions of market participants to further standardise securitisation documentation, (c) the functioning of the due diligence requirements of Article 5 and the transparency requirements of Article 7 of the EUSR, and the level of transparency of the securitisation market, and (d) the risk retention requirements of Article 6 including compliance by market participants and the methods of risk retention.

The Report will be used by the European Commission (the “Commission“) for the preparation of its report to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on the functioning of the EUSR, which is due by 1 January 2022, pursuant to Article 46 of the EUSR, and which may be accompanied by a legislative proposal.  It is therefore an important step in relation to the regime for EU securitisations which was established by the EUSR when it became applicable on 1 January 2019.

Click here to read the full Legal Update.

For more information about the topics raised in this Legal Update, please contact Robyn Llewellyn on +44 20 3130 3990 or Mariana Padinha Ribeiro on +44 20 3130 3163.