- in United States
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Effective October 29, 2025, the CFPB finalized its rule, published at 90 Fed. Reg. 48737-60, rescinding certain amendments to the rules made on February 22, 2022 (prior blog) and on March 29, 2023 (prior blog) (collectively, the 2022 and 2023 amendments).
Under Section 1053(e) of the Consumer Financial Protection Act, the CFPB is authorized to prescribe rules for hearings and adjudication proceedings. Those rules are codified at 12 C.F.R. Part 1081. In May 2025, the CFPB issued a proposed rule to rescind the 2022 and 2023 amendments to those rules, specifically the expansion of the deposition process and the amendments concerning timing and deadlines, the bifurcation of proceedings, the process for deciding dispositive motions, and the requirements for issue exhaustion, as well as other technical changes.
The CFPB only received six unique comments (from a trade association, a coalition of trade groups, a public policy think tank, and three individual commenters). Industry trades supported rescission while the individuals argued for retention. After considering the comments, the CFPB decided to rescind the amendments as proposed, while retaining certain changes to the rules regarding time limits and the availability of documents as well as certain procedural and nomenclature changes, as noted below.
Of particular concern in the 2022 and 2023 amendments was the transfer of the power to decide dispositive motions from the hearing officer to the Director, an atypical structure in the Executive branch. The 2022 and 2023 amendments required parties to file all dispositive motions with the Director and authorized the Director to decide the motion or to refer the motion to the hearing officer.
The 2022 and 2023 amendments also included amendments related to scheduling conferences, the bifurcation of proceedings, subpoenas and depositions, and issue exhaustion. The CFPB viewed those amendments as largely unnecessary, or further concentrating power in the Director, finding in particular that it would be more efficient to decide issues together, it would unnecessarily increase costs to permit discovery depositions and subpoenas, and it would duplicate general principles of administrative law that courts apply to include provisions for issue exhaustion.
The CFPB retained the following portions of the 2002 and 2023 amendments:
- Section 1081.114(a) that simplifies and clarifies the method for computing deadlines, as well as those conforming adjustments that change the 10-day periods throughout the Rules of Practice to 14-day periods.
- Section 1081.206 that permits it to provide electronic copies of documents to respondents.
- Technical amendments that replaced certain uses of the term "the Bureau" with either "the Director," "the Office of Administrative Adjudication," or "the Office of Enforcement," in order to avoid ambiguity about which CFPB organization is being referenced.
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