FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, June 29, 2020
Contact: Pamela Russell at 202-618-6433 or prussell@bettermarkets.com
Washington, D.C. – Dennis M. Kelleher, President and Chief Executive Officer of Better Markets, issued the following statement in response to the Supreme Court decision in the Seila Law v. CFPB case:
“Today, the Supreme Court overruled Congress’s decision to create a strong, independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to protect financial consumers who were ripped off by a predatory financial industry in the years before the 2008 crash. Federal regulators were empowered and mandated to protect those financial consumers before the crash, but they refused to do their job and, indeed, sided with the financial industry predators and not the tens of millions of hardworking Americans who were their victims. That wasn’t only bad for consumers, it also caused financial instability because consumer abuses in the subprime mortgage markets fueled and intensified the 2008 financial crash.
“Congress was determined to prevent that from happening again and to make sure financial consumers were protected. That is why it created, in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Financial Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the CFPB as an independent agency mandated to protect consumers without fear or favor. That required that the CFPB be insulated from the power and influence of the financial industry and its many allies throughout government. Thus, the Dodd-Frank Act provided the CFPB with broad powers, independent funding, litigation authority and a director who could only be fired for cause. Those provisions protected the CFPB from the industry, which could lobby Congress and the President to gut, weaken or kill the agency and prevent it from holding them accountable for their illegal conduct.
“That independence and those protections worked exactly as intended. During the Obama administration, the CFPB returned almost $12 billion to almost 30 million ripped-off Americans. Finally, there was a very effective cop on the Wall Street beat and the financial industry was furious. It wanted to keep that money in their pockets, not return it to their victims. It has spent enormous time and money buying political allies and funding attacks on the CFPB. Today’s Supreme Court decision, with the full support of the Trump administration, Wall Street’s best friend in Washington, is the return on that investment. While the Court removed the protection for the director, the CFPB is still mandated by the law to protect financial consumers not financial predators. It is long past time for Trump’s CFPB Director to follow the law.”
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Better Markets is a non-profit, non-partisan, and independent organization founded in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to promote the public interest in the financial markets, support the financial reform of Wall Street and make our financial system work for all Americans again. Better Markets works with allies – including many in finance – to promote pro-market, pro-business and pro-growth policies that help build a stronger, safer financial system that protects and promotes Americans’ jobs, savings, retirements and more. To learn more, visit www.bettermarkets.com.
