When letting you know that it’s investigating you, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is going to start sharing some more information about what they think you might have done wrong.
The CFPB announced yesterday changes to its Civil Investigative Demand process, with the intention of providing more information about the “potentially wrongful conduct under investigation,” the agency announced.
Changes are being made to the process as a result of “recent court decisions” as well as a report issued in 2017 by the Office of Inspector General that “emphasized the importance of updating Office of Enforcement policies to reflect such developments,” the CFPB said in a release announcing the decision. The policy change also reflects comments that were submitted following a Request for Information that the CFPB released last year that sought feedback about the CID process.
The move is being seen as a continuation of the changes announced last year when Mick Mulvaney was the CFPB’s Acting Director, when he announced that the era of regulation by enforcement at the agency was over. Kathy Kraninger, who succeeded Mulvaney atop the CFPB, did not make a statement regarding the new policy.
In attempting to shed more light on what it is looking for, the CFPB announced that CIDs will “provide more information about the potentially applicable provisions of law that may have been violated.” As well, “CIDs will also typically specify the business activities subject to the Bureau’s authority.”
CIDs are usually the first step in an investigation where the CFPB seeks information, documents, and testimony that relate to some potential issue. But companies have lamented the broad nature of information sought in CIDs, which made it difficult to discern what the bureau might be looking into. One Appeals Court ruling, from last September
