Updated: January 2020

Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

Consumer Action has joined the National Consumer Law Center and the Center for Consumer Law and Education, UC Berkeley Center for Consumer Law and Economic Justice, the Housing Clinic of Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School and University of Montana law professor Craig Cowie, in filing an amicus brief supporting the constitutionality of the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The case will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on March 3, 2020. (Click here to download the brief.)

When Congress established the CFPB as an independent consumer protection agency it limited the President’s authority to remove the agency’s director. The brief supports Congress’s decision to require a president to fire a CFPB director for a reason (“for-cause”), rather than for any reason or no reason at all (“at will”).

If the Supreme Court rules Congress’s “for-cause” mandate unconstitutional, the brief argues that such a ruling must not be allowed to impact the CFPB's function as an independent agency. The petitioners hold that all CFPB rules, legal actions and supervisory decisions must remain intact and in force. If these critical elements were dismantled, it would eliminate the significant benefits that the CFPB has contributed to creating a more stable and accountable financial marketplace, and, notes the brief, could threaten the sustainability of our economy.