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Jonathan L. Pompan

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Jonathan Pompan is co-chair of the firm's Consumer Financial Services Practice Group and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Task Force. Jonathan's practice focuses on providing comprehensive legal advice and regulatory advocacy to a broad spectrum of clients, such as nonbank financial products and services providers, advertisers and marketers, and trade and professional associations, before the CFPB, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), state attorneys general, and regulatory agencies. At a time when government consumer protection agencies are stepping up their scrutiny, Jonathan develops strong and lasting relationships with clients by understanding their business objectives, helping them recognize opportunities and avoid legal pitfalls.

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Through a new interpretive rule announced this week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has declared that digital marketing providers can be held liable under the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) if they engage in or substantially assist unfair, deceptive or abusive practices in advertising financial products on behalf of banks and nonbanks covered by the CFPA.

While service providers to “covered persons” under the CFPA are already subject to the Act, Congress carved out an exception for service providers offering or providing to covered persons “time or space for an advertisement for a consumer financial product or service through print, newspaper, or electronic media.” The CFPB’s new rule limits the applicability of that exemption to digital marketing providers such that the “electronic media” prong is very nearly void.Continue Reading CFPB Warning to Consumer Financial Services Digital Marketing Providers

Venable hosted another jam-packed session on the regulatory and litigation risks facing the lead generation industry today, and strategies for mitigating them. In the webinar, Daniel Blynn, Alexandra Megaris, and Jonathan Pompan covered federal and state law enforcement priorities; TCPA, legislative, licensing, and regulatory developments; and more.

Key takeaways:

  • Dive into federal and

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The explosion in Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) has caught the eyes of lawmakers and regulators, who are taking a closer look at this booming industry.

BNPL payment offers allow consumers to purchase goods or services now and pay for them over time, often through a short series of installments (for example, four payments spaced two weeks apart). Industry researchers have found that Gen Z consumers increased their use of BNPL products from 6% in 2019 to 36% in 2021. However, with this growth, lawmakers and regulators have voiced concerns about BNPL, including that consumers may easily spend more than they can afford and rack up multiple BNPL purchases with varying payment schedules and payment terms.

Read our 360 Degree Analysis of Buy-Now-Pay-Pater Products

The list of consumer protection concerns raised by lawmakers and regulators is long. Consumers may face late fees, fees for failed payments, payment rescheduling fees, early payoff fees, account reactivation fees, or other fees charged by BNPL providers that may not be readily apparent.Continue Reading The Buy-Now-Pay-Later Boom Gets Consumer Protection Attention

In the latest example of its creative use of different enforcement tools to obtain monetary relief in the wake of the Supreme Court’s AMG opinion, the FTC has resurrected a dormant authority to hold companies accountable, via significant financial penalties, for unfair and deceptive business practices.

This week the FTC announced that it has put 70 for-profit higher education institutions—including some of the largest for-profit colleges and vocational schools across the country—on notice that the agency is scrutinizing false promises made about graduates’ job opportunities, earnings prospects, and other career outcomes.

The FTC is resurrecting its Penalty Offense Authority, found in Section 5(m) of the FTC Act, “to deter wrongdoing and hold accountable bad actors who abuse students and taxpayers,” according to FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. Under this section of the statute, the FTC can obtain penalties against other entities not party to the original proceeding if it can show the entity had actual knowledge that the act had been found to be unfair or deceptive.Continue Reading FTC Invokes Penalty Offense Authority to Crack Down on For-Profit Education Industry

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairwoman Lina Kahn, who took over the reins of the FTC in June, is making it clear that she is no fan of the direction some private equity-owned businesses have taken in recent years. She takes particular issue with, “extractive business models” that “centralize control and profits while outsourcing risk, liability, and costs.” She went on to say these business models, “warrant particular scrutiny, given that deeply asymmetric relationships between the controlling firm and dependent entities can be ripe for abuse.”

Kahn circulated a memo to commission staff and commissioners regarding the vision and priorities for the agency. In the memo, Kahn writes, “[t]he growing role of private equity and other investment vehicles invites us to examine how these business models may distort ordinary incentives in ways that strip productive capacity and may facilitate unfair methods of competition and consumer protection violations.”

By tying private investment to extractive business—and specifically to abuses that effect on marginalized communities—the chairwoman has put a target on these firms’ backs.Continue Reading Should Private Equity Worry About Consumer Protection Investigations?

As the payments industry continues to evolve at a lightning pace, one of the newest developments is the ability for payments companies to leverage card network services to “push” payments to cardholders. Earlier this year, the technology gained attention as a potentially safe and efficient way to transfer funds in response to the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, as businesses shift to a remote environment, push-to-card services can provide benefits for both individuals and businesses, including for person-to-person (P2P) money transfer, funds disbursement, and bill payment, among other uses. And with the increased focus on “faster payments,” push technology has been discussed as a private sector means to speed up transaction settlement.
Continue Reading Pushing to the Forefront – Get Ready for Push-to-Card Payments

With much of the economy disrupted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, one area that continues to grow is automated clearing house (ACH) payments, according to data recently released by Nacha, the non-profit that governs ACH payments. While the recent jump in ACH volume was driven in part by the delivery of federal stimulus payments, it is reflective of a longer term trend of growth in the industry, as ACH becomes increasingly popular for consumer bill payment (rent and utilities), health care payments, payroll processing, and business account payables

Also contributing to the growth in ACH payments is the ability of banks to partner with “third-party senders” to facilitate the origination of ACH payments. Like a payment facilitator in the credit card space, a third-party sender can help a bank expand its ACH origination capabilities by signing up customers to receive the bank’s ACH services. Working with a third-party sender, however, can increase a bank’s exposure to legal, compliance, credit, and reputation risks. These risks are reflected in news articles last year about an ACH payroll processor in New York that allegedly absconded with almost $30 million of its clients’ payroll and tax payments.

As ACH continues to grow, it is critical for banks and their partners to understand the ins and outs of facilitating these payments. Accordingly, this article provides a brief overview of the ACH system, the roles and responsibilities of the key players, and best practices for minimizing risk when banks partner with third-party senders.
Continue Reading Managing Risks in Third-Party Sender ACH Processing

Following a warning from earlier this year, the FTC recently filed a complaint against a group of corporate and individual defendants for allegedly misleading and deceiving small business “merchant cash advance” (MCA) customers. Structured properly, an MCA product offers an alternative to standard commercial credit under which the MCA provider purchases the right to receive a fixed amount of the customer’s receivables to be paid based on a percentage of the customer’s daily receipts.

Specifically, the FTC alleged that the defendants misrepresented the amount of financing small business customers would receive relative to their requests, misrepresented the necessity of collateral and personal guarantees, and engaged in unauthorized withdrawals from customers’ bank accounts even after receiving the agreed upon amount of the customers’ receivables. The complaint calls for permanent injunctive relief, rescission or reformation of the MCA contracts, restitution, refund and disgorgement.

The FTC’s enforcement action is just one of its recent efforts to police alleged unfair and deceptive practices targeting small businesses. Given the current economic disruptions caused by COVID-19, we can expect that the FTC will continue to attack both deception and improper debt collection aimed at small businesses.Continue Reading FTC Follows up on Enforcement Priorities with Complaint Against Merchant Cash Advance Provider

The FTC continues policing business-to-business deception and its focus on small-business financing. On June 10, 2020, the FTC filed a Complaint in the Southern District of New York against two New York-based companies and several of their owners and officers for allegedly violating the FTC Act in connection with their business financing activities.

According to the Complaint, the defendants targeted small businesses, medical offices, non-profit organizations, and religious organizations. Since 2015, defendants allegedly deceived these consumers by misrepresenting terms of the merchant cash advances (MCAs) defendants provided, and subsequently used unfair collection practices to compel these entities to pay.Continue Reading New York-Based Business Financing Companies Allegedly Deceive and Threaten Business Consumers

Financial services advertising and marketing occurs in an increasingly regulated and evolving legal landscape.  This quick hit with attorneys from Venable LLP explored the latest legal trends and developments in financial services advertising and marketing. Topics included:

  • COVID-19 impact on consumer and business lending advertising;
  • lead generation, influencer, and other emerging marketing methods;
  • regulatory outlook

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