2015 Year in Review – The FCC and TCPA Litigation

Tim Bauer
President, the iA Institute

2015 was a busy year for the ARM industry. FDCPA litigation flourished. Consumer litigation in general was up year-over-year. The CFPB, FTC, and various state and local regulatory bodies made headlines. However, in one man’s opinion, in July of this year the ARM industry was hit with the most significant event since the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) was enacted in 1978 and/or the Consumer Financial protection Bureau (CFPB) came into existence in 2011.

On July 10, 2015 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) finally released its long-awaited (since June 18) TCPA Omnibus Declaratory Ruling and Order. (You can read the full text of the ruling here.) The Ruling has been extremely controversial. The ruling divided the FCC along partisan lines. Two angry, detailed dissents were filed. One by Commissioner Ajit Pai and the second by Commissioner Michael O’Reilly.