After refusal from their tenants to pay a newly increased rental rate, landlords in Queens, New York, posted two banners on the building that read in bold, black font, "MY TENANTS ON THE FIRST FLOOR ARE NOT PAYING RENT." The collection problems began in July 2120, when the landlords raised the rent on the three-bedroom home from $1,800 to $1,900 per month due to financial strain from the pandemic.  MORE >

Arizona Senate Bill 1394 goes into effect on August 11, 2022. S.B. 1394, or Arizona Statute § 6-117, streamlines dated licensing requirements for businesses that are presently required to obtain separate licenses for assumed business names or tradenames. The bill will remove the requirement for an enterprise or consumer lender to separately license trade names and will allow licensees to operate with additional trade names under a single license. This will save licensees time and money by connecting additional trade names to a single license name without having to spend money on multiple licenses. The statute merely requires that the enterprise or consumer lender notifies the department in writing, on a form prescribed by the director, before using the assumed name or trade name. MORE >

On March 24, 2022, Utah became the fourth state, behind California, Colorado, and Virginia, to enact a consumer data privacy law, the Utah Consumer Privacy Act (the “UCPA”). The UCPA moved from introduction to enrollment in less than a month and becomes effective on December 31, 2023. MORE >

On March 16, 2022, the CFPB announced that it intends to target discrimination as an “unfair practice” pursuant to its unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts or practices (“UDAAP”) authority. Specifically, the CFPB announced that it will closely examine financial institutions’ decision-making in advertising, pricing, and other areas to ensure that companies are appropriately testing for and eliminating illegal discrimination. The CFPB published an updated examination manual for evaluating UDAAPs, which notes that discrimination may meet the criteria for “unfairness” by causing substantial harm to consumers that they cannot reasonably avoid, where that harm is not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or competition. MORE >