Bureau seeks comments on administrative hearings

Continuing Acting Director Mick Mulvaney’s call for input on how the CFPB performs its jobs, the bureau put out its second “request for information.”

The Jan. 31 request deals with the bureau’s rules of practice for adjudication proceedings. These are the rules governing hearings and related processes conducted by the bureau itself, rather than in a traditional courtroom.

As stated on the bureau’s website: “Administrative adjudication proceedings are formal adversarial proceedings conducted by an administrative law judge, who issues a recommended decision to the CFPB director. The director issues a final decision, either adopting or modifying the administrative law judge’s recommended decision.” (For more basics, visit this page.)

Among the questions asked in the request for information is whether CFPB should only contest issues in federal court, and not use the administrative adjudication process. Among the parties the bureau anticipates hearing from are those that have been involved in bureau administrative law cases.

CFPB will begin accepting comments after the anticipated Feb. 5 publication of the request in the Federal Register. 

CFPB also announced that the next request will concern bureau enforcement actions. The bureau expects to publish that next week.