On May 13, the CFPB published a Federal Register notice withdrawing its proposed rule to rescind the amendments it adopted to the Rules of Practice for Adjudication Proceedings, amended in 2022 and 2023. As previously covered by InfoBytes in 2022 and 2023, these amendments afforded greater procedural flexibility to conduct administrative adjudication proceedings, including opportunities to “conduct depositions”; the amendments also addressed “timing and deadlines, the content of answers, the scheduling conference, bifurcation of proceedings, the process for deciding dispositive motions, and requirements for issue exhaustion, as well as other technical changes.” The Bureau expressed particular concern about provisions that transferred authority to decide dispositive motions from the hearing officer, typically an administrative law judge, to the Director, and noted that the other changes effected by the amendments were “largely unnecessary.”

Visit our resource center, CFPB Pause: Where From Here?, to stay on top of the latest and what it may mean for the federal and state regulatory and enforcement landscape.