RSSWilliam MacLeod, a partner at Kelley Drye & Warren, LLP, will join the previously announced slate of members of the taskforce on federal consumer financial law at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. MacLeod is past chair of the antitrust section of the American Bar Association, and a former bureau director at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
Other members of the taskforce announced last week are: J. Howard Beales, III, former professor of strategic management and public policy at George Washington University, Washington, D.C., and former director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission; Thomas Durkin, retired senior economist for the Federal Reserve Board; L. Jean Noonan, partner at Hudson Cook, former general counsel at the Farm Credit Administration, and former associate director of the credit practice at the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection; and Todd J. Zywicki (taskforce chair), law professor at George Mason University, Fairfax, Va., and a senior fellow of the Cato Institute.
The Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law will examine the existing legal and regulatory environment facing consumers and financial services providers and report to CFPB Director Kathleen L. Kraninger its recommendations for ways to improve and strengthen consumer financial laws and regulations.
The taskforce will produce new research and legal analysis of consumer financial laws in the United States, focusing specifically on harmonizing, modernizing, and updating federal consumer financial laws—and their implementing regulations—and identifying gaps in knowledge that should be addressed through research, ways to improve consumer understanding of markets and products, and potential conflicts or inconsistencies in existing regulations and guidance.
“The taskforce will conduct a thorough examination of our current regulatory framework and report on how we can improve federal consumer financial laws to benefit and protect consumers,” Kraninger said. “I look forward to the work the taskforce will undertake and reviewing their recommendations.”
