Consumer Financial Services
Consumer financial products and services continue to receive unprecedented attention in today’s legal environment, presenting both challenges and opportunities for market participants. Paul Hastings’ industry leading consumer financial service group has deep experience advising on the full gamut of legal issues facing the sector, including complex product and regulatory issues, internal investigations, federal and state agency investigations, enforcement, litigation, and transactions; and accordingly, is able to offer a full service approach in handling consumer financial services matters. Chambers USA has observed that the practice has “a strong skill set across a variety of subject matter areas”, is “a go-to for complex enforcement” and has “extraordinary talent” with lawyers who “get results.”
We represent U.S. and international clients of varying sizes and types, including global financial institutions, banks, non-bank lenders, servicers, fintechs, payment processors, and credit bureau reporting entities. Over the years, these clients have included many of the most prominent financial services providers, as well as third-parties providing adjacent services in the ecosystem and companies such as retailers using consumer financial products to facilitate other business functions. Because of the depth and breadth of our work across the industry, we are able to help clients see around the corner on emerging trend lines in addition to assisting with the legal matters of the moment.
Our expert practitioners include lawyers who have spent time in government agencies, on Capitol Hill, and in-house at major institutions and emerging companies. They are individually ranked in Chambers USA, Legal 500, Benchmark Litigation, and Best Lawyers, among others, and are thought leaders who are engaged frequently to speak, write, and comment on industry trends by trade associations, bar associations, and the media.
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Practice focal points include:
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Product and service focal points include:
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Investigations and Government Enforcement
Our team routinely represents clients in government agency investigations, congressional investigations, and internal investigations, including matters triggered by whistleblowers. We have particular expertise helping companies navigate interrelated and coordinated actions, and our team often provides concurrent, strategic guidance to senior leadership and Boards of Directors when they are dealing with bet the company legal risks.
Drawing upon our depth of practice, which includes complex regulatory work, our team understands emerging trends and helps clients respond to shifting agency priorities. We have handled actions by every major federal and state financial services enforcement agency, including matters that are the outgrowth of supervisory activity.
We regularly are involved in defending investigations and inquiries by agencies that include: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Department of Justice; Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Federal Reserve Board; Federal Trade Commission; Department of Housing and Urban Development; state attorneys general; and state banking departments.
Our representations have involved the full suite of consumer products and services as well as the alphabet soup of laws applicable to consumer financial services. We also have substantial experience defending clients facing government allegations of fraud under the False Claims Act and Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act and defending whistleblower actions under Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley, often handled in coordination with our award winning Employment Practice. These matters have included high-profile, precedent-setting resolutions as well as nonpublic closures.
Product and Regulatory
Our team routinely advises industry participants on complex regulatory issues, compliance management, product development, and licensing matters. We counsel clients through all stages of product development: from ideation and strategy, to commercial negotiations with counterparties, to enhancement of the user experience. We also are engaged on policy matters to assist companies in navigating emerging regulatory issues that have potential to reshape the landscape.
We work with companies of all sizes and types, and together with our Fintech and Payments team, have particular depth of experience working with companies on the cutting edge of innovation. We aim to deliver efficient, sophisticated, and practical advice rooted in our decades of experience counseling clients on consumer protection laws, which include ECOA, EFTA, FDCPA, FCRA, FHA, HMDA, TILA, and RESPA as well as BSA/AML. We also advise on state financial services laws, including those related to money transmission, financial services licensing, usury, and other laws touching credit and payments. Our representations often involve, in addition, issues relating to unfair, deceptive, and/or abusive acts and practices (UDAAP/UDAP) under the FTC Act, the Dodd-Frank Act, and state law.
We have one of the nation’s preeminent fair and responsible lending practices and have represented dozens of companies in matters initiated by the CFPB, DOJ, HUD, Prudential Bank Regulators, and State Attorneys General involving loan pricing and underwriting, redlining, and product placement (steering) under federal and state anti-discrimination laws.
In addition, we have deep expertise helping entities develop and enhance compliance management systems. Such work includes advising on policies and procedures, training, monitoring and testing protocols, vendor management, and complaint management.
Litigation
Paul Hastings lawyers handle complex litigation and putative class actions involving financial institutions throughout the country. Drawing on our depth of regulatory knowledge and wealth of industry experience, our litigators consistently achieve outstanding results involving the most complex issues facing the industry. We have litigated significant cases arising under a wide range of federal and state laws, handling matters through all phases of litigation. We routinely work with prominent trade association, representing them in impact litigation relating to critical industry issues.
Paul Hastings also has significant depth of experience handling litigation that may be the outgrowth of consumer financial services matters. Such representations often include matters handled by our Securities and Employment Groups.
Transactions
Our practitioners routinely draft and negotiate commercial agreements on behalf of clients to support consumer financial services products. These include bank-Fintech origination and deposit program management agreements, payment processing contracts, contracts with credit bureaus, and other vendors in the financial services space. Our regulatory expertise deeply informs our advice and advantages our clients in negotiations with counterparties.
In addition, the consumer finance group is often brought in to provide subject matter expertise in connection with deal-related diligence. Paul Hastings is one of very few global firms with deep expertise in consumer financial services sector as well as industry leading practices in key transactional areas, including Capital Markets, M&A, Structured Finance, Restructuring, and Private Equity, among others. These capabilities make the Firm uniquely positioned to provide holistic solutions to financial services companies around the world, as our consumer finance subject matter experts work seamlessly with our transactional practitioners to handle complex financings, investments, mergers, acquisitions, and distressed matters.
Recognition
- Chambers USA rankings in Consumer Finance, Fintech, Corporate Crime & Investigations, and Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
- Law360 Practice Group of the Year for Compliance and White Collar
- Global Investigations Review Most Impressive Investigations
- The Legal 500 rankings in Consumer Law, Cryptocurrency, and Fintech
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