Jeff Alberts, co-head of the firm's Financial Institutions Group, spoke with Law360's Jon Hill about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's consumer protection agenda and its potential impact on those who fall afoul of financial services-related violations. 

Hill noted that Cuomo has pitched the proposals as part of a drive to “enable New York to respond effectively to the absence of federal consumer protection enforcement,” and in his agenda released Wednesday, the governor criticized the Trump administration for “working against” efforts to protect consumers from financial services misconduct.

According to Hill, "New York law already gives the DFS power to penalize 'companies for any intentional fraud or intentional misrepresentation,' for example, the expanded authority contemplated by the governor’s proposal would seek to match that given to the CFPB under the Dodd-Frank Act, which empowers the agency to go after unfair, deceptive and abusive acts or practices, also known as UDAAPs."

In response, Alberts suggested that "could provide state officials with a broader scope to bring enforcement actions that they might not have had clear authority to pursue before....The fact the state previously didn’t have this enforcement ability and now would have a more expansive enforcement ability could end up being pretty significant."

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