WASHINGTON–In a development that is the opposite of the direction many expected, regulatory enforcement actions made by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have risen to their highest level in five years, to levels not seen since the Bureau was under the control of former director Richard Cordray, according to an analysis of the CFPB Online Enforcement Database at Law360.
After Cordray exited in a failed bid to win the Ohio governorship, Democrats had expressed strong concerns the Trump Administration’s appointment of Kathleen Kraninger to lead the CFPB would mean a sharp decrease in use of its enforcement authority to the detriment of American consumers.
But the Bureau brought 19 different enforcement actions during the third quarter, “a pace nearly four times what it was the previous quarter and more than double what it was the same quarter last year,” Law360 report noted.
Part of the thing that may be driving the increased enforcement volume is the fact investigations related to enforcement actions can take years, so this rise could coincide with the simultaneous conclusion of several investigations, Allen Denson, a partner at the Hudson Cook law firm in Washington told Law360.
Enforcement actions at the CFPB did notably stall after Cordray left the Bureau and Kraninger was finally appointed, an interim during which Mick Mulvaney served as acting director. Mulvaney, who simultaneously served as White House chief of staff, is now the U.S. Special Envoy for Northern Ireland.