Last Week, This Morning

October 13, 2026

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.

On October 6, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Commissioner of the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Samuel Levine announced proposed new legislation - the People and Organizations Winning Economic Relief Act ("POWER" Act) - that would create a private right of action for consumers and nonprofits to sue businesses for unfair methods of competition and unfair, deceptive, abusive, or unlawful acts or practices. The legislation would permit suits on both an individual and class basis, allowing plaintiffs to seek compensatory, injunctive, and declaratory relief. Small businesses (employers with four or fewer employees and gross revenue of less than $5 million) would be exempt from suit, and the legislation would impose a 3-year statute of limitations. If passed, the legislation would permit suit for violations of numerous New York City rules that do not currently have a private right of action, including the recently revised DCWP debt collection rule.

Amicus Brief(ly): Arriving on the heels of the soon-to-be-effective updates to NYC's SHIELD Rule governing collection conduct of creditors and debt collectors, this update is anything but good news (for businesses, that is - it's pretty great news for plaintiffs' lawyers). We think the POWER Act may have been former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau attorney (and relatively new Commissioner) Sam Levine's big idea, but the DCWP is going to open up the floodgates of consumer-initiated litigation against creditors and debt collectors alike for alleged violations of the SHIELD Rule. Debt collectors will likely recall the dramatic reduction in volume of Fair Debt Collection Practices Act litigation that we saw following the adoption of Regulation F, pursuant to which the CFPB gave the industry a "safe harbor" debt validation notice template and clear rules about how to complete it. For debt collectors and creditors doing business in NYC, we are headed back to the pre-Reg. F days because the SHIELD Rule includes a number of technical requirements related to the debt validation notice but does not, unfortunately, include a safe harbor for the required notice. This proposed legislation needs industry lobbyist attention, if only to ensure that the DCWP understands its likely impact not just on debt collectors and creditors but also on the already-busy NYC courts.

On October 5, the Federal Trade Commission dismissed an administrative complaint that it filed in August 2024 seeking permanent injunctive relief against one of the largest auto retailers in the nation, three of its dealerships, and their general manager. The FTC's complaint generally alleged that the respondents discriminated against Black and Latino customers, in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, by charging them more for voluntary protection products than they charged non-Latino white customers. The complaint also alleged that the respondents charged customers for voluntary protection products without their express, informed consent and misled some consumers into believing that these products were required. The FTC also alleged that the respondents sometimes engaged in "packing" - a practice of adding additional products to the purchase contract when the approved credit amount would accommodate additional charges.

The FTC wrote in its dismissal order that, shortly after it filed its administrative complaint, the respondents initiated a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, "seeking a preliminary injunction and asserting constitutional claims regarding the Commission's structure and administrative procedures. The administrative proceeding was subsequently stayed to permit resolution of the collateral issues in the federal court action, and has remained stayed, without the opportunity for substantial prosecution, ever since. More than two years after the administrative complaint was first issued, and though the federal district [court] has denied a preliminary injunction and dismissed several of [the respondents'] constitutional claims, the federal district court lawsuit remains pending - currently awaiting resolution of an interlocutory appeal of the denial of preliminary relief. Upon resolution of the appeal, the matter would then be remanded to federal district court for any remaining issues to be decided on the merits. The Commission anticipates this could result in years of additional federal court litigation before any administrative adjudication could then commence in earnest and ultimately reach the merits of the administrative complaint." The dismissal order went on to state that the FTC "must constantly evaluate the deployment of its limited agency resources to ensure maximal efficacy and utility. Here, there are a variety of factors we must consider in pursuit of those priorities, including the increasingly unlikely possibility of reaching a timely resolution of the merits that led to the filing of the administrative complaint in the first place. Based on the totality of the circumstances, we have come to the difficult conclusion that the public interest requires that this litigation no longer be continued."

Amicus Brief(ly): Chalk this up as a huge win for the dealer group because the FTC does not typically issue administrative complaints without ensuring that it is likely to succeed on the merits and, once it does, will rarely walk away from those complaints. The FTC had already dismissed a credit discrimination count made in the complaint, consistent with the federal government's mandate to abandon disparate impact theories of liability. But even with its recent emphasis on dealer pricing practices, the FTC is dismissing the balance of its administrative complaint because it sees no near-term resolution of the dealer's concurrent federal lawsuit challenging the FTC's structure and process. The FTC's order dismissing its complaint does not foreclose the possibility that the FTC could pick its lawsuit back up in the future, but it is over for now.

On October 6, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report on the value of mortgage trigger leads for homebuyers. The GAO was required to produce the report pursuant to a provision of the federal Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act, which was enacted in September 2025. Specifically, the report examines: (1) the potential benefits of mortgage trigger leads for homebuyers; (2) drawbacks associated with mortgage trigger leads for homebuyers; and (3) how the HPPA's restrictions may affect the benefits and drawbacks of mortgage trigger leads.

When homebuyers apply for a mortgage loan, lenders request their credit reports from credit reporting agencies. The credit reporting agencies may then sell the homebuyers' credit and contact information to other mortgage lenders and brokers, which then use that information to market competing loan offers to those homebuyers. Until the enactment of the HPPA, the Fair Credit Reporting Act permitted credit reporting agencies, without the homebuyer's consent, to provide information about a homebuyer's credit to mortgage lenders and brokers that did not have an existing relationship with the homebuyer. The HPPA amended the FCRA to limit the sale of mortgage trigger leads to lenders and brokers that have an existing relationship with the homebuyer or have obtained the homebuyer's consent to receive solicitations.

The GAO's report concluded that not enough time has passed to assess the effects of the HPPA's restrictions, which took effect in early March 2026, and more time is needed before any changes would be reflected in complaint patterns or mortgage shopping data. However, early indications suggest that the HPPA's restrictions on mortgage trigger leads could reduce the volume of unsolicited mortgage offers homebuyers receive while preserving opportunities for homebuyers to comparison shop. The GAO's report also found that some homebuyers may be more receptive to marketing offers if they receive a much lower volume of solicitations or if the solicitations are from companies with which they have an existing relationship. The GAO also learned that, since the HPPA's enactment, some lenders have been using trigger leads as a tool for retaining existing customers. For example, some lenders or brokers now send lists of current customers to credit reporting agencies and pay the agencies to alert them when a customer applies for a new mortgage loan. National Survey of Mortgage Originations data for 2022-2024 show that homebuyers identified lender reputation and having an established banking relationship as important factors in selecting a lender.

Amicus Brief(ly): These initial returns from the GAO report are favorable for consumers who do not want to hear from multiple mortgage brokers and lenders right after they complete a mortgage loan application and also for mortgage lenders and brokers that could stick with the trigger lead concept and actually get potential borrowers' attention with their solicitations based on trigger leads. One of the stated goals of trigger lead users (and the consumer reporting agencies that sell trigger leads) is to give mortgage loan applicants some choices as they move through the mortgage application process. The report indicates that the overall reduction in trigger lead hits that make it to consumers is giving those consumers a more meaningful opportunity to shop for better deals, so the HPPA might just work. With only six months of data to go on, the GAO rightly defers meaningful interpretation until it has more information.

On October 8, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it reached a proposed settlement with an auto dealership group, reflecting the agency's continued focus on price transparency. The settlement resolves allegations that the defendants advertised vehicles for thousands of dollars less than the actual price they charged to consumers, in violation of the FTC Act.

According to the FTC's complaint, the defendants advertised their vehicles online at artificially low prices. When consumers attempted to purchase the vehicles they had seen online, the defendants allegedly refused to honor their advertised prices. Instead, the defendants allegedly inflated the prices by: (1) adding thousands of dollars of dealer-imposed fees; (2) claiming that advertised prices reflected conditional rebates and discounts only available to a subset of consumers; (3) charging for mandatory add-on packages that they claimed could not be removed; (4) inflating charges that the government requires consumers to pay, such as title, license, and registration fees; and (5) increasing prices without explanation. The complaint alleged that, as a result of these unlawful practices, the defendants overcharged consumers in more than 92% of transactions, on average by more than $3,350 over the advertised price. The complaint also alleged that the defendants sent consumers mailers falsely representing that they had won prizes that could be collected at each dealership location. Finally, the complaint alleged that the defendants continued their allegedly unlawful practices even after receiving a warning letter from the FTC in March 2026 concerning their advertising practices.

In addition to requiring price transparency and prohibiting deceptive prize mailers, the proposed order prohibits specific misrepresentations, including whether charges, fees, taxes, products, or services are optional or required and whether any type of or source for financing is required.

Amicus Brief(ly): These vehicle price advertising issues keep coming up in enforcement, so either the FTC started investigating dealers long ago in a sweeping review for price advertising concerns and is just concluding those investigations and moving to lawsuits, settlements, or no-action letters or dealers have not been listening to the FTC or the state attorneys general who are raising the same concerns in their own investigations. Recall that the FTC sent letters to a number of dealers and issued guidance on price transparency, seeking to raise awareness of its unfair and deceptive acts and practices concerns. Coupled with numerous recent state AG actions against vehicle dealers built on the same fact patterns and legal issues, we have heard all we need to hear about these pricing practices issues. Dealers that have not yet reviewed their price advertising and fulfillment practices against the FTC's guidance and state laws may be hearing from the FTC or a state AG soon to inquire about their advertising practices, which could very well lead to a public settlement like the one in this case.

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¹ For the unfamiliar, an “Amicus Brief” is a legal brief submitted by an amicus curiae (friend of the court) in a case where the person or organization (the “friend”) submitting the brief is not a party to the case, but is allowed by the court to file the brief to share information or expertise that bears on the issues in the case.