NEW YORK (AP) — The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau has dropped several enforcement actions against companies like Capital One and Rocket Homes, just weeks under new leadership and turmoil at the agency caused by orders from Trump administration.
In voluntary dismissals filed on Thursday, the CFPB dropped lawsuits it had brought against Capital One, Rocket Homes, Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, and more.
Those suits were all filed under the agency’s previous director, Rohit Chopra, who President Donald Trump fired just weeks ago. The CPFB has since plunged into turmoil — with the White House later ordering it to halt nearly work, closing its headquarters and firing scores of its workers.
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Trump has defended his administration’s broadside against the CFPB — including recent claims about the agency being “set up to destroy people.” He’s nominated former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation board member Jonathan McKernan to be agency’s new director, who faced a Senate committee hearing Thursday.
The CFPB is charged with creating rules and taking enforcement actions to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices by a wide range of financial institutions and businesses. The agency has said that it’s obtained nearly $20 billion in financial relief for U.S. consumers since its founding — in the form of canceled debts, compensation, and reduced loans.
Legal action from the CFPB often involves banks, mortgage servicers, credit card companies, student loan processors, payday lenders, money transfer providers, credit reporting agencies and debt collectors.
Last month, the CFPB sued Capital One for allegedly misleading consumers about its offerings for high-interest savings accounts — with the bureau accusing the banking giant of “cheating” customers out of more than $2 billion in lost interest payments as a result. Meanwhile, its suit against Vanderbilt Mortgage, also filed last month, accused the company of pushing consumers into loans they couldn’t afford. And the CFPB’s December complaint against Rocket Homes alleged a “kickback scheme” from the company to illegally steer prospective borrowers to Rocket Mortgage, which operates under the same parent company, and away from other competitors.
But, on Thursday, court filings in the Rocket Homes case noted that the “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, dismisses this action, with prejudice, against all Defendants.” Similar wording was used in the dismissals of the CFPB’s Capital One and Vanderbilt Mortgage suits.
In a statement Thursday, Rocket Homes welcomed its dismissal and said “it is good to see the truth come to light” — calling the suit “an empty claim brought forth by former CFPB director Chopra for the sole purpose of seeing his name in headlines during the final days in public office.”
Capital One also welcomed the CFPB’s Thursday decision, noting that it had “strongly disputed” the action filed against the company.
The Associated Press also reached out to Vanderbilt Mortgage for comment.
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