Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) officials said the Dodd-Frank Act’s prohibition on abusive acts or practices would be the prime focus of its first symposium on June 25.
The effort is part of a series announced earlier this year. While the Act authorizes the Bureau to take enforcement, supervision and rulemaking actions concerning unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices (UDAAP), the meaning of abusiveness is less developed than the meaning of unfair or deceptive, which have been defined substantially by the Federal Trade Commission Act.
The symposium, which officials said is designed to provide a public forum for the Bureau and the public to hear various perspectives on the meaning of abusiveness, will have two panels of UDAAP experts.
The effort will also include remarks by CFPB Director Kathleen L. Kraninger, as well as CFPB Deputy Director Brian Johnson.
The first panel will include a discussion with leading academic experts in the area of Consumer Protection on various policy issues relating to the abusive standard under Dodd-Frank. It will be moderated by Tom Pahl, CFPB’s Policy associate director of Research, Markets, and Regulation.
The second panel will examine how the abusive standard has been used in practice. That panel will be moderated by David Bleicken, CFPB deputy associate director of Supervision, Enforcement, and Fair Lending.