Commercial Litigation Update

On January 7, 2025, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) published a final Rule (the “Rule”) that prohibits consumer reporting agencies from including individuals’ medical debt on consumer credit reports. The CFPB states that this Rule, which amends Regulation V of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, aims to ease financial burdens placed on individual consumers seeking loans by preventing medical debt from negatively impacting credit scores. Additionally, the Rule prohibits creditors from considering consumer medical debt information in credit eligibility determinations and decisions.

The Rule has been published in the Federal Register and is scheduled to become effective March 17, 2024. A recent Executive Order, however, may delay or impact whether the Rule is implemented and, if it is implemented, the timing of when the Rule becomes effective.

On July 7, 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) issued an advisory opinion entitled ‘“Fair Credit Reporting: Permissible Purposes for Furnishing, Using, and Obtaining Consumer Reports.”[1] The advisory opinion clarifies that “permissible purposes” under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (the “FCRA”) are “consumer specific” and highlights that a person who uses or obtains a “consumer report” is “strictly prohibit[ed]” from doing so without a permissible purpose under the FCRA. In the midst of ongoing Congressional efforts to pass a comprehensive federal data privacy law, the CFPB’s advisory opinion is a reminder of the existing rules that protect consumer privacy.