FAIR HOUSING GROUPS SUE CFPB OVER RULE THAT INCREASES THRESHOLD FOR MORTGAGE REPORTING

摘要

On July 30, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) and a group of community organizations, represented by Public Citizen Liti- gation Group, filed a lawsuit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to overturn a new rule that exempts thousands of financial institutions from reporting data that is instrumental in uncovering housing discrimination. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the lawsuit claims that the new rule reverses transparency into housing discrimination as required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In addition to NCRC, the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Montana Fair Housing, Texas Low Income Housing Information Service, the City of Toledo, OH, Empire Justice Center and the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development-groups that depend on the data for their research into illegal lending discrimination and advocacy to promote fair housing and lending. "The CFPB used its rule-making power to undermine data reporting that's essential for the public to detect and stop discrimination in lending and housing," said NCRC CEO Jesse Van Tol. "The CFPB should use its data-gathering powers and other tools for what the agency was designed to do-to ensure that consumers are treated fairly. This rule does the opposite-it helps a group of lenders hide data from the public."