On August 19, the CFPB filed an opposition in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to a nonbank Rule 60(b) motion seeking to vacate a post-remand judgment totaling approximately $185 million, including roughly $134 million in restitution, $23 million in penalties, and $29 million in accrued post-judgment interest (previously covered by InfoBytes here). The judgment arose from a decade-long enforcement action alleging that the defendants used a tribal reservation entity to collect on high-cost consumer loans with interest rates as high as 169 percent in violation of state usury and licensing laws. The judgment was entered against the company and its founder. The defendants exhausted all appeals, including denial of certiorari in March (covered here), and then moved to vacate the judgment, alleging the CFPB provisionally accepted a settlement framework and abandoned it, and arguing that intervening Supreme Court decisions and the Bureau’s enforcement discretion in dismissing other matters warranted relief.

The CFPB called the defendants’ claims “baseless,” arguing they failed to meet Rule 60(b)’s “rigorous standard” of extraordinary circumstances as articulated in the Supreme Court’s 2025 BLOM Bank decision — which the CFPB noted defendants did not cite. The Bureau argued that the monetary judgment is not “prospective” relief subject to modification under Rule 60(b)(5). It further argued the defendants’ claimed “intervening” changes in law all occurred during the litigation and had already been briefed unsuccessfully on appeal. With respect to the alleged settlement, the CFPB stated its own exhibits showed the parties never agreed on key terms, that Bureau personnel repeatedly told the defendants there was no agreement, and that a CFPB official communicated that the Bureau did not believe there was “a credible basis” for a Rule 60(b) motion. The CFPB also dismissed as “nonsense” the defendants’ argument that their 2018 payment of the original $10.3 million penalty satisfied the judgment. Further, it characterized as “another delay tactic” the defendants’ instruction to the bank holding more than $124 million in pledged assets not to comply with the CFPB’s transfer demand, which prompted the bank to file an interpleader action. A hearing is set for September 14.