For immediate release: June 11, 2024 Researchers Unveil Searchable Database of Top Private Equity Energy Portfolios For the first time, the Private Equity Climate Risks project has released a list of the energy holdings of 21 of the largest private equity firms globally, compiling their
By staying the private fund disclosure rule written by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Fifth Circuit has given a victory to extraordinarily wealthy predatory financiers and opened the door to undermining the agency’s basic regulatory tools. Stopping the SEC’s private funds rule, which would increase transparency and accountability in the multi-trillion-dollar private funds market, is a terrible outcome in and of itself. But the impacts of this ruling go much further.
An intricate network of housing industry groups, often backed by corporate landlords, are actively blocking solutions that would alleviate the worst aspects of the current housing crisis and improve affordability, according to a new report. The report, from Capital Strategies for the Common Good, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, Bargaining for the Common Good, and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, sheds light on the money behind the political influence that has distorted the politics of housing in favor of wealthy interests.
Today over 90 organizations and individuals, representing patients, workers, communities; public interest advocates, and health care researchers, called on federal authorities, as part of their review of competition in health care, to take action to curb the abuses of private equity and safeguard the ability of doctors to deliver quality care to all patients and achieve equitable health outcomes.
A new centralized public database that catalogs violations of consumer protection laws by nonbank financial companies like payday lenders and debt collectors will aid state and federal enforcement efforts that often operate under the radar and are hard to track. The repeat misconduct registry will help remedy these regulatory blind spots and make it easier for regulatory agencies across the local, state, and federal levels to more easily spot bad actors. Members of the public, investors, creditors, business partners, and consumer advocacy organizations will also be able to more easily track financial firms subject to law enforcement orders due to repeat consumer violations.
The cryptocurrency bill passed by dozens of House Democrats and most Republicans at the behest of a free-spending industry lobby lacks effective protections for consumers, establishes weak rules for this fraud-ridden industry and contains loopholes that could undermine regulatory safeguards for all investors and consumers. The influx of crypto political spending this election year – notably millions in negative ads in California’s Senate primary – loomed large in this vote. Crypto super PACs, largely financed by a handful of wealthy Silicon Valley tech donors, have pledged to spend tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars this election cycle.
As the House meets this Wednesday to vote on a bill that would create a new federal framework for crypto regulation, labor unions, consumer and investor protection organizations and experts are raising the alarm about the bill’s potential to cause serious consumer and investor harm. Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress joined more than 30 national and state organizations and academic scholars and thought leaders with financial regulatory expertise in sending a letter to Congress expressing opposition to H.R. 4763, The Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (“FIT” Act).
The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the funding method Congress chose for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, allowing a vital agency to continue its work in holding Wall Street and predatory lenders to account, and promoting economic and racial justice. The case stems from a lawsuit against the CFPB brought by the Community Financial Services Association over a regulation that prohibited lenders from withdrawing funds from consumer accounts after two failed attempts due to lack of funds. CFSA, a lobby group for payday lenders, argued that the CFPB’s funding, which is drawn from the Federal Reserve, is unconstitutional.
The decision by a federal judge in the Fifth Circuit to stay a rule capping credit card late fees is a blow not only to consumers but to the rule of law as right-wing jurists resort to increasingly extreme measures to block sensible regulation. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on March 5 finalized a regulation that caps credit card late fees at $8 in most cases, down from a typical $32. The rule is expected to save consumers about $10 billion each year, an average savings of $220 per year for the more than 45 million people who are charged late fees. The rule only applies to the largest credit card issuers, and was to have taken effect May 14.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) voted to propose a rule implementing an important statutory mandate to ban incentive-based executive compensation that encourages reckless risk-taking, but two other regulators – the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission – have yet to do the same. Congress tasked six agencies with promulgating this critical rule when it passed the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010. But only four out of the six were part of today’s proposal — the FDIC, the OCC, the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).