A four-member Consumer Financial Protection Bureau task force is now in place, including representation from attorneys, former regulators and academic leaders.
L. Jean Noonan, a partner at Hudson Cook in Washington, D.C., which has an ACA International member office in Maryland, will serve on the task force.
Noonan is former general counsel at the Farm Credit Administration, and former associate director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection’s Credit Practice at the Federal Trade Commission, according to a CFPB news release.
The Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law will examine the existing legal and regulatory environment facing consumers and financial services providers. It will report its recommendations related to improving and strengthening consumer financial laws and regulations to CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger.
The task force will also produce new research and legal analysis of consumer financial laws in the U.S., focusing specifically on harmonizing, modernizing and updating the federal consumer financial laws—and their implementing regulations—and identifying gaps in knowledge that should be addressed through research, ways to improve consumer understanding of markets and products, and potential conflicts or inconsistencies in existing regulations and guidance.
“The task force will conduct a thorough examination of our current regulatory framework and report on how we can improve federal consumer financial laws to benefit and protect consumers,” Kraninger said.
The additional task force members include:
- J. Howard Beales, III, former professor of strategic management and public policy at the George Washington University and former director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission;
- Thomas Durkin, senior economist (retired) at the Federal Reserve Board; and
- Todd J. Zywicki, professor of law at George Mason University (GMU) Antonin Scalia Law School, senior fellow of the Cato Institute, and former executive director of the GMU Law and Economics Center.
Zywicki will serve as the chair of the task force.
