The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has started taking steps to beef up its enforcement division, announcing the hiring of an attorney who will lead the unit while also announcing that it is looking to hire as many as 30 additional attorneys, according to published reports.
Eric Halperin has been tapped to lead the enforcement division, according to a published report. Halperin, who is currently the executive director of the Civil Rights Corps, a legal defense non-profit group, spent four years during the Obama administration at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. He served as the Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General and oversaw the unit’s fair housing, fair lending, and employment discrimination programs.
The agency is also planning on bringing back Seth Frotman, according to the report. Frotman, who resigned from the CFPB back in 2018 in a stunning blaze of glory, was in charge of overseeing student lenders and debt collections related to student loans. After leaving the CFPB, he helped form the Student Borrower Protection Center, from which he announced his departure earlier this week.
To work under Halperin, the Bureau is looking to hire between 20 and 30 new attorneys for its enforcement division, according to a published report. Such a bump in the number of attorneys would amount to about a 10% increase in the number of lawyers working in the CFPB’s supervision, enforcement, and fair lending division.
Everyone, including those in the accounts receivable management industry, are expecting the CFPB under new Director Rohit Chopra, to be more aggressive and active in executing its enforcement prerogatives, and the moves that have been announced this week certainly lend credibility to those expectations.
