Tag: APA

Lawsuit Challenges CFPB’s ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Rule

On Oct. 18, 2024, fintech trade group Financial Technology Association (FTA) filed a lawsuit challenging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) final interpretative rule on “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) products. Released in May 2024, the CFPB’s interpretative rule classifies BNPL products as “credit cards” and their providers as “card issuers” and “creditors” for purposes of the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and Regulation Z.

The FTA filed its lawsuit challenging the CFPB’s interpretative rule in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The FTA alleges that the CFPB violated the Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA) notice-and-comment requirements by imposing new obligations on BNPL providers under the label of an “interpretive rule.” The FTA also alleges that the CFPB violated the APA’s requirement that agencies act within their statutory authority by ignoring TILA’s effective-date requirement for new disclosure requirements and imposing obligations beyond those permitted by TILA. The FTA also contends that the CFPB’s interpretive rule is arbitrary and capricious because it is “a poor fit for BNPL products,” grants “insufficient time for BNPL providers to come into compliance with the new obligations” imposed by the rule, and neglects “the serious reliance interests that [the CFPB’s] prior policy on BNPL products engendered.”

In a press release announcing its lawsuit, the FTA said the BNPL industry would welcome regulations that fit the unique characteristics of BNPL products, but that the CFPB’s interpretive rule is a poor fit that risks creating confusion for consumers. “Unfortunately, the CFPB’s rushed interpretive rule falls short on multiple counts, oversteps legal bounds, and risks creating confusion for consumers,” FTA President and CEO Penny Lee said. “The CFPB is seeking to fundamentally change the regulatory treatment of pay-in-four BNPL products without adhering to required rulemaking procedures, in excess of its statutory authority, and in an unreasonable manner.”

The FTA’s pending lawsuit notwithstanding, BNPL providers may wish to consult with legal counsel regarding compliance with the CFPB’s interpretive rule. Retailers marketing BNPL products should also consider working with legal counsel to implement third-party vendor oversight policies to enhance BNPL-partner compliance with the rule.

©2024 Greenberg Traurig, LLP. All rights reserved.
For more on the CFPB, visit the NLR Financial Institutions Banking section.

US District Court Sets Aside the FTC’s Noncompete Ban on a Nationwide Basis

On August 20, the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas held that the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) final rule banning noncompetes is unlawful and “set aside” the rule. “The Rule shall not be enforced or otherwise take effect on its effective date of September 4, 2024, or thereafter.”

The district court’s decision has a nationwide effect. The FTC is very likely to appeal to the Fifth Circuit. Meanwhile, employers need not concern themselves for now with the rule’s notice obligations, and the FTC’s purported nationwide bar on noncompetes is ineffective. Employers do, however, need to remain mindful of the broader trend of increasing hostility to employee noncompetes.

The Court’s Decision

On April 23, the FTC voted 3-2 to publish a final rule with sweeping effects, purporting to bar prospectively and invalidate retroactively most employee noncompete agreements. The court’s decision addressed cross-motions for summary judgment on the propriety of the FTC’s rule. The court denied the FTC’s motion and granted the plaintiffs’ motion for two reasons.

First, the court held that the FTC lacks substantive rulemaking authority with respect to unfair methods of competition under Section 6(g) of the FTC Act. In reaching its holding, the court considered the statute’s plain language, Section 6(g)’s structure and location within the FTC Act, the absence of any penalty provisions for violations of rules promulgated under Section 6(g), and the history of the FTC Act and subsequent amendments. Because the FTC lacked substantive rulemaking authority with respect to unfair methods of competition, and hence authority to issue the final noncompete rule, the court did not consider additional arguments regarding the scope of the FTC’s statutory rulemaking authority. Notably, the court did not consider whether the final rule could overcome the major questions doctrine.

Second, the court held that the FTC’s final noncompete rule was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because it was “unreasonably overbroad without a reasonable explanation” and failed to establish “‘a rational connection between the facts found and the choice made.’” The court heavily discounted studies that the FTC had relied upon that purported to measure the impact of statewide noncompete bans because no state had ever enacted a ban as broad as the FTC’s ban: “[t]he FTC’s evidence compares different states’ approaches to enforcing non-competes based on specific factual situations — completely inapposite to the Rule’s imposition of a categorical ban.” “In sum, the Rule is based on inconsistent and flawed empirical evidence, fails to consider the positive benefits of non-compete agreements, and disregards the substantial body of evidence supporting these agreements.” The court further held that the FTC failed to sufficiently address alternatives to issuing the rule.

In terms of a remedy, the court “set aside” the FTC’s final noncompete rule. The “set aside” language is drawn verbatim from the APA. The court noted that the FTC’s argument that any relief should be limited to the named plaintiffs in the case was unsupported by the APA. Instead, the court noted that its decision has a nationwide effect, is not limited to the parties in the case, and affects all persons in all judicial districts equally.

Further Litigation

In addition to a likely FTC appeal to the Fifth Circuit, two other cases are pending that likewise challenge the FTC’s final noncompete rule. First, in ATS Tree Services v. FTC, pending in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the district court previously denied the plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction. Second, in Properties of the Villages, Inc. v. FTC, pending in the Middle District of Florida, the court enjoined the FTC from enforcing the rule against the named plaintiffs. A final judgment in one of these cases that differs from the result in the Northern District of Texas could eventually reach the courts of appeals and potentially lead to a circuit split to be resolved by the US Supreme Court.

Takeaways for Employers

For now, the FTC’s noncompete rule has been set aside on a nationwide basis, and employers need not comply with the rule’s notice obligations. Noncompetes remain enforceable to the same extent they were before the FTC promulgated its final rule. Depending on how further litigation evolves, the rule could be revived, a temporary split in authority could arise leading to confusion where the rule is enforceable in certain jurisdictions but not in others, or the rule will remain set aside.

An important part of the court’s decision is its rejection of the FTC’s factual findings, which were made in support of the rule, as poorly reasoned and poorly supported. As we discussed in our prior client alerts, we anticipate that employees may cite the FTC’s findings to support challenges to enforceability under state law. The court’s analysis of the FTC’s factual findings may substantially undermine the persuasive authority of the FTC’s findings.

Employers should anticipate that noncompete enforcements in the coming years will remain uncertain as courts, legislatures, and government agencies continue to erode the legal and policy justifications for employee noncompetes. This counsels in favor of a “belt and suspenders” approach for employers to protect their legitimate business interests rather than relying solely on noncompetes.

© 2024 ArentFox Schiff LLP
For more on the FTC Noncompete Ban, visit the NLR Labor Employment section

Supreme Court Broadens the Types of Federal Agency Actions That Can Be Challenged in Court

Recently an article by Jerry Stouck and David B. Weinstein of Greenberg Traurig, LLP regarding the  Types of Federal Agency Actions that can be Challenged in Court was published in The National Law Review:

GT Law

The Supreme Court recently held, in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, that “compliance orders” unilaterally issued by the EPA, which the agency contended were informal directives not subject to judicial review, qualify as “final” agency actions that can be challenged in court under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The decision is not limited to EPA compliance orders, although many hundreds of those are issued each year, which now will be subject to judicial review. Sackett applies more broadly because it expands the types of federal agency actions that will be deemed final, and thus subject to judicial challenge, under the APA. Any agency action that has coercive legal effect, and no established avenue for agency-level review, is now potentially challengeable under Sackett.

The APA authorizes federal courts to enjoin or set aside agency action that is arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law, and to compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed. In any such case, however, it is a jurisdictional requirement that the agency action be “final.” The rationale is that courts should not interfere with ongoing agency decision-making. Such finality is relatively clear when a party challenges a regulation or an order resulting from formal agency adjudications (e.g., license or permit proceedings). But most actions of federal regulatory agencies fall into neither category, and instead constitute what practitioners call “informal” agency adjudication. EPA compliance orders are in that category; they do not result from any well-defined agency proceeding. So are many other types of agency directives and procedures.

Sackett involved a couple who, in the course of developing a residential lot they owned into a home site, filled in part of the lot with dirt and rock. Unbeknownst to the Sacketts, their lot contained wetlands that the EPA considered to be within federal regulatory jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act (CWA). If that were true, the Sacketts could not lawfully fill the wetlands without a federal permit. The EPA issued a compliance order containing “Findings and Conclusions” that the lot did in fact contain wetlands subject to EPA jurisdiction. The order also directed the Sacketts to restore the lot in accordance with an EPA work plan and to provide EPA with access to the lot and to records concerning conditions at the lot.

The Sacketts, who believed their lot did not contain wetlands subject to the CWA, requested a hearing before the EPA, which the agency refused to provide. The Sacketts then filed suit, but the lower courts dismissed it, finding that the compliance order did not qualify as final agency action under the APA. Thus, the Sacketts were unable to initiate a judicial proceeding to resolve the dispute over whether their wetlands were subject to the CWA. But if the EPA later went to court to enforce its compliance order, the government contended that statutory per-day penalties owing from the Sacketts would double, and that obtaining a necessary permit would be more onerous under applicable regulations. In essence, therefore, the EPA compliance order was coercive — if the Sacketts “voluntarily” complied with the order, they would avoid the double penalties and the additional permitting requirements.

That coercive effect was central to the Supreme Court’s reasoning in holding that the compliance order was a final agency action, subject to judicial review. The coercive effect of the EPA compliance order in Sackett is also what makes the decision potentially applicable to other, similarly-coercive agency directives and procedures. Under the test articulated by the Court in a 1997 decision, Bennett v. Spear, agency action is “final” for APA purposes if it both “determines rights and obligations” and marks the “consummation” of the agency’s decision-making process. The Court in Sackett found the former requirement satisfied because “legal consequences” flowed from the compliance order, i.e., the doubling of the statutory penalties and tightening of the wetlands permitting requirements. The government contended, however, that even though the EPA refused the Sacketts’ request for a hearing, the compliance order was not the end of the Agency’s decision-making process. The government pointed to a portion of the order that invited the Sacketts to “engage in informal discussion” with the EPA regarding the order’s terms and requirements and/or any allegations in the order that they believed to be inaccurate. The Court rejected this argument, and found the compliance order sufficiently final, because it conferred no “entitlement” to further Agency review. The Court concluded that the “mere possibility” that an agency might reconsider as a result of informal discussions “does not suffice to make an otherwise final agency action nonfinal.”

Underlying the Sackett decision is a concern, expressly noted by the Court, that agencies should not be allowed to “strong-arm . . . regulated parties into ‘voluntary compliance’ without the opportunity for judicial review.” When regulated parties face such strong-arming at the hands of federal agencies they should now consider whether, pursuant to Sackett, judicial redress is available under the APA.

©2012 Greenberg Traurig, LLP