RSSRaj Date, the man on Director Richard Cordray’s right hand, will leave the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after it completes its mortgage rules, likely sometime in 2013.
Date has been a key player in the start-up of the CFPB. After the Dodd-Frank Act created the agency in 2010, Date came to the Bureau to advise Elizabeth Warren. He served as head of research, markets and regulation before becoming acting director as the Bureau awaited a congressionally approved director. When Cordray was recess-appointed by President Obama, Date became deputy director.
While Date did not disclose his plans after he leaves the Bureau, the trend for senior CFPB officials would put Date in the private sector with a specialization in consumer-compliance. In August, Leonard Chanin, assistant director of the Bureau’s Office of Regulations, left to bring his broad experience on consumer regulation to private practice with Morrison & Foerster, a law firm with offices throughout the world including Washington, D.C. He followed Deepak Gupta, the CFPB’s former senior enforcement counsel, who left to start a consumer advocacy law firm.
For all the rhetoric surrounding the industry about banks earning too much on products that victimize consumers, it is certainly interesting to reflect on the new high-dollar market created by the Bureau in compliance litigation and consulting.
