Texas Judge Turns Down CFPB Bid To Unfreeze Credit Card Late Fee Rule

A Texas judge on Friday rejected the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's request to revive an $8 late cap fee on credit card late payments, reports Reuters.

District Judge Mark Pittman in Fort Worth said the rule violated the Credit Card Accountability and Disclosure Act, allowing penalty fees.

"Congress assigned the (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) as an umpire to call balls and strikes on the reasonableness and proportionality of penalty fees," Pittman said, using a baseball analogy.

But by preventing card issuers from actually imposing penalty fees, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau impermissibly "established a strike-zone only large enough for pitches right down the middle," he wrote.

Pittman in May issued an injunction on the CFPB’s new rule, a victory for business and banking groups challenging part of the Biden administration's crackdown on "junk fees.”

In asking the judge to revisit the injunction, CFPB said the action had rested entirely on an appeals court's ruling declaring the agency's funding structure unconstitutional, a decision subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court.

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