The Blog of Legal Times quoted Venable of counsel Jonathan Pompan in a July 31, 2012 article about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filing its first ever civil enforcement action in a federal court against a Los Angeles law firm. The CFPB procured an ex parte temporary restraining order against the firm at the same time that it filed the lawsuit accusing the firm of deploying false advertising and marketing.
Offering his analysis of the CFPB's enforcement action, Pompan said that it is "a wake-up call that the CFPB will take aggressive approaches to bringing enforcement actions." Pompan added, "A temporary restraining order, asset freeze and temporary receiver is the most significant immediate relief the bureau can obtain and when it's ex parte it does so without notice." Commenting further on the implications of this recent action, Pompan explained that this case was the "equivalent of a nuclear bomb."