The National Fair Housing Alliance (“NFHA”) and three other plaintiffs have amended their lawsuit challenging the CFPB’s recently issued amendments to Regulation B under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”). The amended complaint, filed August 11, makes several important changes to the complaint originally filed on May 27.
The amendments do not fundamentally alter the plaintiffs’ challenge to the Regulation B rule. The plaintiffs continue to contend that the CFPB acted unlawfully in eliminating disparate-impact liability under ECOA, narrowing the regulation’s prohibition against discouragement, and effectively eliminating important uses of special purpose credit programs (“SPCPs”).
But the amended complaint adds a potentially significant new procedural challenge: the plaintiffs now allege, based on the administrative record produced by the CFPB, that the Bureau failed to comply with Dodd-Frank’s requirement that it consult with appropriate prudential regulators and other