On 10/22/21, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the launch of a new Combatting Redlining Initiative. The new Initiative represents the department’s most aggressive and coordinated enforcement effort to address redlining, which is prohibited by the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

On 10/22/2021, the CFPB released the remarks of new CFPB Director Rohit Chopra at a Joint DOJ, CFPB, and OCC press conference on the Trustmark National Bank Enforcement Action. While describing the enforcement action (which we covered here), Mr. Chopra warned of “digital redlining.”

On 8/30/2021, the OCC and Department of Justice (DOJ) jointly announced an agreement to resolve allegations that Cadence Bank, which is headquartered in Atlanta, engaged in lending discrimination by “redlining” predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in the Houston, metro area. Under the department’s settlement, Cadence will invest over $5.5 million to increase credit opportunities for residents of those neighborhoods. In conjunction with this announcement, the OCC also announced that it has assessed penalties against the bank in the amount of $3 million related to the violations alleged in the department’s complaint.

On 7/1/2021, the Federal Housing Finance Agency issued a policy statement on Fair Lending to communicate the agency's general position on monitoring and information gathering, supervisory examinations, and administrative enforcement related to the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Fair Housing Act, and the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act. The FHFA is also soliciting comments on its application.

On 4/20/21, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that wass charging an owner of a six-bedroom rental home in Frisco, Texas, with violating the Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent to a woman and her ten children. HUD’s charge alleges that the owner stated that he could not rent the home to a family with eleven people, even though the mother, a HUD Housing Choice Voucher recipient, was qualified to rent the home.