October 20, 2025
Below you will find several key developments in the financial services industry, including related developments in information privacy and data security, from the past week. We add an "Amicus Brief(ly)1" comment to each item, where we briefly (see what we did there?) note for friends (and again?) of CounselorLibrary the important takeaways from the developments outlined in the email. Our legal reporters - CARLAW, HouseLaw, InstallmentLaw, PrivacyLaw, and BizFinLaw - provide more comprehensive, real-time updates of federal and state laws, regulations, litigation, and other industry items of interest. For a personal guided tour and free trial of any of these legal reporters, please contact Michael Willer at 614-855-0505 or mwiller@counselorlibrary.com.
The Federal Communications Commission recently released a notice of proposed rulemaking that could significantly change how companies approach compliance with the FCC's rules implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The FCC's proposal will be open for public comment once it has been published in the Federal Register, which has not yet happened.
The most notable FCC proposal is to eliminate the TCPA rule provision requiring businesses to maintain company-specific do-not-call lists. The FCC's rationale is that the national do-not-call list, the TCPA's consent requirements, and consumers' right to revoke consent to be contacted adequately protect consumers' privacy. If the FCC adopts this proposal, consumers could still stop individual companies from calling or texting them for marketing purposes by revoking consent they had previously provided to the company or by terminating any "established business relationship" that the company relied on to call or text someone on the national do-not-call list. At the same time, the FCC is proposing to give companies the ability to restrict the means consumers may use to revoke TCPA consent. The current standard allows consumers to revoke TCPA consent at any time by any reasonable means. The FCC seeks public comment on a proposal to allow companies to designate an exclusive method for consent revocation. The FCC is also proposing to abandon an earlier TCPA rule amendment that would have established that a consumer's revocation of any type of robocall or robotext consent constituted a revocation of consent applicable to all robocalls and robotexts that require consumer consent. The FCC previously suspended this rule change from taking effect and is now looking to eliminate it altogether.
The FCC's new proposal would also eliminate rule provisions regulating predictive dialers and abandoned calls and requiring callers to allow unanswered marketing calls to ring for at least four rings or 15 seconds. It also seeks comment on changes to how transmission of caller ID information is regulated and required disclosures in prerecorded messages.
In several cases, the FCC is proposing to eliminate standards that are also imposed by the Federal Trade Commission's Telemarketing Sales Rule. The TSR versions of these standards would not be affected by the FCC's proposal. The Do Not Call Implementation Act calls on the FCC and the FTC to harmonize their standards as much as possible. The FCC responds to that statutory directive by asserting that this obligation to be consistent does not prohibit either agency from modernizing its standards.
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California Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed Assembly Bill 483, which provides that a seller that enters into or modifies a fixed term installment contract with a consumer on or after August 1, 2026, may not charge an early termination fee to a consumer who terminates the installment contract unless, at the time of entering the initial contract, the initial contract includes a clear and conspicuous written disclosure of: (1) the total cost of the early termination fee; or (2) the formula used to calculate the early termination fee and the highest possible early termination fee under the installment contract. "Fixed term installment contract" is defined as "any contract for the sale of goods or the furnishing of services by a seller to a consumer for a deferred payment price payable in installments required to be made by the consumer during a fixed period of time until the price is paid in full."
Under the new law, a seller that uses a fixed term installment contract entered into or modified on or after August 1, 2026, may not charge an early termination fee or any similar fee in an amount greater than 30% of the total sum for which the consumer is obligated under the contract. The law does not prevent a buyer from paying the full remaining balance of a fixed term installment contract before its maturity.
The law does not apply to a fixed-term installment contract that is regulated by a state or federal law that provides greater protections to consumers than those provided by the new law or to a home improvement contract. The law makes a waiver of its provisions void and unenforceable.
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The Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services recently finalized a rule that sets forth requirements for the collection and remittance of sales and use taxes related to leases and rentals of tangible personal property. The rule is effective for lease and rental transactions occurring on or after January 1, 2025.
The new rule contains a section specifically addressing leases and rentals of vehicles. The calculation of the taxable sale price and the rate of tax imposed on the lease or rental differ depending upon the duration of the lease term - short-term (less than one year) or long-term (one year or more). Where the lease requires recurring periodic payments, all monthly payments are sourced, for purposes of determining the tax rate, to the primary property location as provided by the lessee pursuant to 36 M.R.S. § 1819(4). For a lease or rental that does not require recurring periodic payments - i.e., the total lease payment is due as one lump sum - the payment is sourced, for purposes of determining the tax rate, the same as a sale of tangible personal property pursuant to 36 M.R.S. § 1819(2).
The new Maine rule states that, for long-term leases or rentals of a vehicle, the taxable sale price must be computed on: (1) the value of the total monthly lease payment (excluding taxes, disposition fees charged when the lessee opts to return a vehicle to the lessor rather than exercising the option to purchase, and charges for excess mileage or excess "wear and tear" and excluding registration fees, life/disability insurance, gap insurance, warranties, and management services if separately stated from the lease payment) multiplied by the number of payments in the lease or rental; (2) the amount of equity involved in any trade-in; and (3) the value of any cash down payment. The collection and remittance of the tax is the responsibility of the person that negotiates the lease transaction with the lessee, and the full amount of sales tax is due in the month in which the lease begins. Long-term leases or rentals are subject to the general sales tax rate. The lessor is not required to collect sales tax on a long-term lease if the vehicle is bought by a nonresident of Maine who will immediately remove the vehicle from Maine and who completes an affidavit stating to that effect.
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California Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed the California Opt Me Out Act (Assembly Bill 566), making California the first state to require web browsers to offer users the ability, via opt-out preference signals, to communicate their privacy preferences to websites. Currently, consumers who do not want websites to sell or share their personal information must indicate this on every website they visit or rely on one of a handful of web browsers that currently offer opt-out preference signals.
The California Consumer Privacy Act grants a consumer various rights with respect to personal information that is collected or sold by a business, including the right to direct a business that sells or shares personal information about the consumer to third parties not to sell or share the consumer's personal information. Beginning January 1, 2027, the Opt Me Out Act prohibits a business from developing or maintaining a browser that does not include functionality configurable by a consumer that enables the browser to send an opt-out preference signal to businesses with which the consumer interacts through the browser. The Act requires a business that develops or maintains a browser to make clear to a consumer in its public disclosures how the opt-out preference signal works and the intended effect of the opt-out preference signal. The Act grants a business that develops or maintains a browser that includes this functionality immunity from liability for a violation of those provisions by a business that receives the opt-out preference signal.
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The Montana Department of Commerce, Board of Housing, amended its rules, effective October 11, 2025, relating to the Reverse Annuity Mortgage Program to reflect market conditions, to provide clarity and more specificity, and to expand eligible properties.
Among other changes, the amendments provide that an applicant for a reverse annuity mortgage loan must obtain counseling by a qualified reverse annuity mortgage counselor in order to be eligible for the loan. The amendments also provide that all closing costs that must be paid by an applicant can be included in the loan principal amount.
The rules state that repayment of the reverse annuity mortgage loan is not required so long as the borrower, or the last surviving borrower, has not permanently vacated the property securing the loan and no default has occurred. The amendments now require that the borrower, the borrower's representative, or any personal representative of the estate if the borrower is deceased notify the Board if the property has been vacated by the borrower or the last surviving borrower for more than 180 consecutive days.
The rule amendments also provide that the property pledged as security for the reverse annuity mortgage loan must satisfy the following requirements: (1) located in Montana; (2) owner-occupied; (3) single-family residence, including certain townhomes, condominiums, and manufactured homes; and (4) HUD Handbook 4000.1 guidelines for Federal Housing Administration home loans and FHA-approved lenders. A condominium may be approved as security for the loan by the Board staff at its sole discretion, and manufactured homes must meet the requirements of the Board's Regular Bond Loan Program.
Finally, the amendments to the rules update the requirements for providing a cash advance to the borrower at loan closing.
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