Industry-Backed Bill to Amend FCRA Surfaces in Congress
A group of Republican lawmakers introduced legislation to amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) Friday, with the aim of better aligning it with other financial consumer protection laws.
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The FCRA Liability Harmonization Act would eliminate punitive damages and cap statutory damages in class-action lawsuits.
The Republican legislators are: Reps. Ann Wagner of Missouri, Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, Bill Huizenga of Michigan, Young Kim of California and Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin,
The Consumer Data Industry Association (CDIA) applauded the bill in a press release Friday. "As currently enacted, the FCRA enables abusive litigation tactics that target companies in many different sectors and can cost businesses, large and small, millions of dollars,” said CDIA President Dan Smith.
“Enacting these commonsense changes will provide more predictability and consistency in the civil enforcement provisions of the FCRA,” he added. “Consumers, consumer reporting agencies, employers, lenders, retailers, and background screeners will all benefit if the damages provisions of the FCRA are restructured to ensure that individual consumers harmed by noncompliance with the law are appropriately compensated for their injuries while placing reasonable and consistent standards in class action lawsuits.”
Loudermilk previously introduced this bill in 2017, which Wagner and Huizenga also co-sponsored.