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Tim Butler helps companies thrive by developing tailored strategies to address their regulatory compliance challenges and vigorously defending them in government enforcement actions and bet-the-company lawsuits.

A former prosecuting attorney for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and former senior official in the Georgia Attorney General’s Office, Tim has led the defense of dozens of government investigations and enforcement actions brought by the FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the various state attorneys general. Tim also regularly defends clients in bet-the-company lawsuits, including complex business disputes and consumer class actions alleging privacy, false advertising, and unfair or deceptive business practice claims.

Tim is an experienced guide for companies struggling with regulatory complexity. He offers clear advice that helps his clients meet the demands of the ever-growing set of laws and regulations governing data privacy and cybersecurity, advertising and marketing practices, and consumer financial products and services. Clients rely on Tim’s business-minded and practical strategies to address their most difficult regulatory compliance challenges.

A graduate of the University of Chicago and Stanford Law School, Tim is a prolific author and regularly speaks to industry and trade groups about the evolving privacy landscape, about cutting-edge issues affecting payments and fintech companies, and about developments at the FTC, the CFPB, and within the state attorneys general community.

On March 13, at the Financial Data Exchange Global Summit, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra delivered a keynote address that focused on “the role of standard setters and standard-setting” as the CFPB pushes towards finalizing is its proposed Personal Financial Data Rights Rule.
Continue Reading Setting the Standard: CFPB to Codify Attributes for Standard-Setters Before Finalizing Personal Financial Data Rights Rule

On March 5, 2024, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized a rule intended to limit late payment fees on credit cards issued by the largest credit card issuers. The final rule amends Regulation Z, reducing safe harbor late fee amounts for large card issuers from $30 to $8 and eliminating automatic annual inflation adjustments.

On Jan. 24, 2024, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a proposed rule that would, if finalized in its present form, prohibit financial institutions from charging non-sufficient funds (NSF) fees when consumers initiate transactions that are instantaneously or near-instantaneously declined. Under the proposed “Fees for Instantaneously Declined Transactions rule (the “NSF Fee Rule”), charging

On Dec. 22, 2023, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen issued an opinion clarifying that certain Earned Wage Access products are not loans under either the Montana Consumer Loan Act or the Montana Deferred Deposit Loan Act.
Continue Reading Montana Attorney General Confirms Certain Earned Wage Access Products Are Not Loans

On Nov. 7, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a proposed rule that would, if finalized in its present form, establish the CFPB’s supervisory authority over certain “larger participant” nonbank companies that provide digital wallets and payment applications. The proposed rule, called the “Defining Larger Participants of a Market for General-Use Digital Consumer

On Nov. 1, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a high-level overview of the topics covered in its proposed Personal Financial Data Rights rule: Fast Facts: Personal Financial Data Rights Proposed Rule

As we noted in our Oct. 20, 2023 Alert, “CFPB Issues Proposed ‘Personal Financial Data Rights’ Rule,” the CFPB’s proposed

On Oct. 26, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued a nationwide injunction prohibiting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from implementing or enforcing its Small Business Lending Rule, which was crafted to implement Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Continue reading the full

On Oct. 25, 2023, the Fed proposed a rule to lower the interchange fee cap in Regulation II, which is largely applicable to debit card issuers with at least $10 billion in consolidated assets. The proposed rule would be the first time that the debit interchange cap has been adjusted since its implementation via the

On Oct. 19, 2023, the CFPB released a proposed rule that, if finalized in its present form, would require covered financial institutions to provide consumers and authorized third parties with access and portability options for their financial data. The CFPB’s proposed rule, called the “Personal Financial Data Rights” rule, would implement Section 1033 of Title

On Oct. 3, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) v. Community Financial Services Association of America (CFSA) (Docket No. 22-448), a case that raises the question of whether the CFPB’s funding structure, by which it receives funding directly from the Federal Reserve rather than via a congressional appropriation, violates the U.S. Constitution’s Appropriations Clause and, if so, what the appropriate remedy should be.
Continue Reading Supreme Court Hears Oral Argument on Constitutionality of CFPB’s Funding