On September 26, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed a case against two banks where the plaintiff alleged violations of TILA and the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. The court ruled in favor of the defendants granting their motion to dismiss all claims with prejudice. The plaintiff claimed the defendants failed to provide required repayment disclosures for his open-end line of credit, which he argued violated TILA. The defendants countered that the regulations limit these disclosure requirements to credit card accounts, exempting general purpose open-end lines of credit similar to the plaintiff’s account. The court sought to determine whether TILA’s repayment disclosure requirements applied only to credit card accounts.

The District Court invited the CFPB to submit an amicus brief to address the issues under TILA and its implementing Regulation Z. The CFPB clarified that since 2010, the repayment disclosure obligations in § 1637(b)(11) have applied only to credit card accounts under an open-end (and not home-secured) consumer credit plan. This interpretation was based on the Fed’s amendments to Regulation Z following the enactment of the CARD Act. The court’s findings coincided with the CFPB’s amicus brief, concluding that the plaintiff’s account, a general purpose open-end line of credit — and not a credit card account — was indeed exempt from TILA’s disclosure requirements. Consequently, the court ruled that the defendants’ omission of minimum repayment disclosures was consistent with Regulation Z, leading to the dismissal of the plaintiff’s claims under both TILA and the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.