Greg Cook and Adam Israel Author Article on Bloomberg Law on Lessons Learned from TD Bank’s CFPB Settlement

In the wake of TD Bank’s recent $122 million settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), members of Balch & Bingham’s Financial Services Litigation Practice, including Practice Chair Greg Cook, along with Adam Israel, partner, share lessons learned and important reminders for financial institutions in a new article published on Bloomberg Law on September 11, 2020.

Greg and Adam explain that TD Bank’s settlement is a signal the CFPB will pursue what it believes are abusive practices even from large, sophisticated banks. To mitigate the chance of enforcement action, the Balch team offer steps that banks should consider to protect themselves. These five key steps include (1) a thorough review of overdraft protection disclosures, (2) developing a standard procedure to guide customer engagements, (3) enforcing a standard script for all enrollments, (4) documenting customer consent and (5) changing sales tactics to avoid liability.  

At Balch, Greg’s practice centers on financial services and commercial litigation, including class action and complex litigation. He served in many different positions within the ABA Litigation Section for nearly 20 years, has been a member of the leadership for the section for a decade, and has published two books for the ABA on class actions. He is the recent author of The Fifth Edition of The Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure Annotated (Thompson Reuters) and serves on the Alabama Supreme Court Standing Committee on the Rules of Civil Procedure. 

A substantial portion of Adam’s practice is focused on complex business litigation, primarily in the areas of business torts and unfair competition and banking and financial services. Adam represents businesses and individuals in non-compete, non-solicitation, and theft of trade secrets cases in trial and appellate courts. Adam is also regularly involved in complex litigation on behalf of highly-regulated businesses.