Venable partner Jonathan Pompan was quoted in an April 19, 2013 Law360 article on ways to weather a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) investigation. The article offers five tips including being ready for before the CFPB issues a civil investigative demand (CID), deciding quickly whether to fight, knowing your data, coming to a meet and confer with details, and communicating.
Offering advice on how to prepare for a CID, Pompan said, “While it may be impossible to know exactly what the CFPB will want before they demand information, companies need to know who should be involved in their response and what types of information is likely to be requested beforehand…In the big picture, you activate your CFPB response plan” when the CID is issued. On deciding whether to fight, a motion to set aside must be filed within 20 days the CFPB director will issue a ruling, Pompan said in March client note, “As a result, the decision process on whether to petition the CFPB or negotiate can feel like a Catch-22 situation that is set up to result in cooperation.”
Pompan described a meet and confer as “the first chance a company has to explain how long it will take to comply with a request and where the request for information should be trimmed. But those requests have to be detailed and show clear reasons why the CID needs to be altered in order to be effective.” He added, “Often times, there's an ability to explain that it's in both the company's interests as well as the bureau's interests to revise the requests, which would still allow the bureau to arrive at the same result but in a much more efficient way.”
Click here to view Pompan's recent presentation to the American Bar Association on navigating CFPB investigations and enforcement actions.
Offering advice on how to prepare for a CID, Pompan said, “While it may be impossible to know exactly what the CFPB will want before they demand information, companies need to know who should be involved in their response and what types of information is likely to be requested beforehand…In the big picture, you activate your CFPB response plan” when the CID is issued. On deciding whether to fight, a motion to set aside must be filed within 20 days the CFPB director will issue a ruling, Pompan said in March client note, “As a result, the decision process on whether to petition the CFPB or negotiate can feel like a Catch-22 situation that is set up to result in cooperation.”
Pompan described a meet and confer as “the first chance a company has to explain how long it will take to comply with a request and where the request for information should be trimmed. But those requests have to be detailed and show clear reasons why the CID needs to be altered in order to be effective.” He added, “Often times, there's an ability to explain that it's in both the company's interests as well as the bureau's interests to revise the requests, which would still allow the bureau to arrive at the same result but in a much more efficient way.”
Click here to view Pompan's recent presentation to the American Bar Association on navigating CFPB investigations and enforcement actions.