In the past few years, the CFPB has delivered various communications regarding its approach to regulating tribal financing. The CFPB pursued an aggressive enforcement agenda that included tribal lending under the bureau’s first director, Richard Cordray. After Acting Director Mulvaney took over, the CFPB’s 2018 five-year plan suggested that the CFPB had no intention of “pushing the envelope” by “trampling upon the liberties of our residents, or interfering with sovereignty or autonomy associated with the states or Indian tribes.” Now, a decision that is recent Director Kraninger signals a come back to a far more aggressive position towards tribal financing pertaining to enforcing federal consumer financial legislation.
Background
Director Kraninger issued an purchase doubting the request of lending entities owned because of the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake Indian Tribe to create apart particular CFPB civil investigative needs (CIDs). The CIDs under consideration had been given in October 2019 to Golden Valley Lending, Inc., Majestic Lake Economic, Inc., hill Summit Economic, Inc., Silver Cloud Financial, Inc., and Upper Lake Processing Services, Inc. (the “petitioners”), looking for information regarding the petitioners’ so-called violation associated with the Customer Economic Protection Act (CFPA) “by collecting quantities that customers would not owe or by making false or misleading representations to customers into the length of servicing loans and collecting debts.” The petitioners challenged the CIDs on five grounds – including immunity that is sovereign which Director Kraninger rejected.