FTC Strikes Deals to Ignore Unlawful Credit Discrimination
FTC Strikes Deals to Ignore Unlawful Credit Discrimination
美国联邦贸易委员会（FTC）达成协议，对非法信贷歧视“睁一只眼闭一只眼”
The Federal Trade Commission recently announced deals with two auto dealers, along with the former general manager of a third, promising not to enforce—or even help enforce—their court-ordered obligations to maintain fair lending programs and not engage in unlawful credit discrimination. 美国联邦贸易委员会（FTC）近日宣布与两家汽车经销商及另一家经销商的前总经理达成协议，承诺不再执行——甚至不再协助执行——这些被告此前根据法院命令所承担的义务，即维持公平借贷计划并避免参与非法信贷歧视。
The Northern District of Illinois, which presided over one case, says it was never given the opportunity to evaluate one of the new agreements, and Arizona attorney general Kris Mayes, whose office was a coplaintiff in another of the affected cases, calls the move “outrageous.” 负责审理其中一起案件的伊利诺伊州北区联邦地区法院表示，从未有机会评估其中一份新协议；而作为另一受影响案件共同原告的亚利桑那州总检察长克里斯·梅耶斯（Kris Mayes）则称此举“令人愤慨”。
The FTC is doing away with the obligations because the defendants didn’t explicitly instruct its salespeople to treat Black and Latino borrowers differently. Previously, the FTC accused all three of charging people of color more in discretionary markups and add-on fees on average compared to white borrowers. (Disclosure: The author of this article previously worked for the FTC but did not participate in any of the matters mentioned in this article.) FTC之所以取消这些义务，是因为被告并未明确指示其销售人员区别对待黑人和拉丁裔借款人。此前，FTC曾指控这三家公司在自由裁量加价和附加费方面，平均向有色人种收取的费用高于白人借款人。（披露：本文作者曾供职于FTC，但未参与本文提及的任何事项。）
In one case, involving a car dealership chain called Passport, the FTC alleged that a financial institution had sent the chain multiple letters notifying it that there were disparities in the markup rates it charged Black borrowers. Attorneys for Passport declined to comment on the agreement. 在涉及一家名为Passport的汽车经销商连锁店的案件中，FTC指控一家金融机构曾多次致信该连锁店，告知其在向黑人借款人收取的加价率方面存在差异。Passport的律师拒绝就该协议发表评论。
The FTC and Arizona previously accused Coulter Motor Company and Gregory DePaola, a former general manager at the Phoenix-area auto dealer, of charging Latino customers more in interest and for add-on products, in violation of the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act, among other charges. FTC和亚利桑那州此前曾指控Coulter汽车公司及其位于凤凰城地区的前总经理格雷戈里·德保拉（Gregory DePaola），称其向拉丁裔客户收取更高的利息和附加产品费用，违反了联邦《平等信贷机会法》等相关法律。
DePaola, who did not respond to a request for comment, signed one of the new agreements. Coulter and an attorney that represented both Coulter and DePaola in the 2024 settlement did not respond to requests for comment. 未回应置评请求的德保拉签署了其中一份新协议。Coulter公司以及在2024年和解案中代表Coulter和德保拉的律师均未回应置评请求。
“The FTC and the Attorney General’s Office partnered on this case to ensure Arizonans can purchase cars without being misled or charged more because of their ethnicity,” says Mayes. “I find it appalling that the FTC would backtrack on the settlement and treat its state partners this way, not to mention essentially greenlight discrimination against Arizonans.” “FTC和总检察长办公室在这一案件中合作，旨在确保亚利桑那州民众在购车时不会因种族原因而受到误导或被收取更高费用，”梅耶斯表示，“我感到震惊的是，FTC竟然在和解协议上出尔反尔，并以这种方式对待其州级合作伙伴，更不用说这本质上是为针对亚利桑那州人的歧视开了绿灯。”
The FTC said in a press release that its past accusations against the defendants were “based on statistical analyses designed to show disparate-impact liability” and that the agency was not going to enforce those types of claims anymore. Disparate-impact discrimination is when a seemingly neutral policy or practice causes disproportionate harm to a protected group, even if that wasn’t the original intent. It stands in contrast to disparate-treatment discrimination, which involves policy intentionally meant to discriminate against a group of people. FTC在新闻稿中表示，此前对被告的指控是“基于旨在证明‘不同影响’（disparate-impact）责任的统计分析”，该机构今后将不再执行此类诉求。“不同影响”歧视是指看似中立的政策或做法对受保护群体造成了不成比例的伤害，即使这并非其初衷。这与“差别待遇”（disparate-treatment）歧视形成对比，后者涉及旨在歧视特定群体的蓄意政策。
“It’s actually a really hard theory where you have to identify a specific policy, prove that it caused a disparity, and then the hardest thing of all is you have to prove that that policy doesn’t serve a legitimate purpose,” says Aaron Rieke, the chief legal engineer at a legal startup called Privlex and a former FTC attorney adviser. “这实际上是一个非常复杂的理论，你必须确定一项具体政策，证明它导致了差异，而最难的一点是，你还必须证明该政策不具备合法目的，”法律初创公司Privlex的首席法律工程师、前FTC律师顾问亚伦·里克（Aaron Rieke）表示。
Logan Koepke, a senior project director at Upturn, a nonprofit that researches technology’s impact on civil rights, says that disparate-impact analysis is more important than ever, because AI and other automated decisionmaking systems, which can sometimes take unintended actions, are being used more often to make important decisions like loan eligibility. 研究技术对公民权利影响的非营利组织Upturn的高级项目总监洛根·科普克（Logan Koepke）表示，“不同影响”分析比以往任何时候都更重要，因为人工智能和其他自动化决策系统有时会产生非预期的行为，而这些系统正越来越多地被用于贷款资格等重要决策。
Last year, the Trump administration directed the FTC and other agencies to review all past orders and take “appropriate action” in an executive order titled “Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy.” The administration has said that disparate-impact liability “undermines our national values.” 去年，特朗普政府发布了一项题为《恢复机会平等与精英管理》的行政命令，指示FTC和其他机构审查所有过去的命令并采取“适当行动”。该政府曾表示，“不同影响”责任“破坏了我们的国家价值观”。
The agreements, which were voted on by the commission in early August but went into effect over half a year prior, in November, are highly unusual. Though the FTC typically has to prioritize some enforcement efforts over others due to resource constraints, by signing and voting out the agreements they essentially delete two sections from each of the orders and potentially make it difficult for future administrations to undo that. 这些协议由委员会在8月初投票通过，但实际上早在半年前的11月就已经生效，这非常罕见。尽管FTC通常因资源限制必须对执法工作进行优先级排序，但通过签署并投票通过这些协议，他们实际上删除了每项命令中的两个条款，并可能使未来的政府难以撤销这一决定。
One of the sections in the orders that the FTC has agreed to ignore prohibits the defendants from discriminating against credit applicants on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, or because the applicant relies on public assistance. FTC同意忽略的命令条款之一，是禁止被告基于种族、肤色、宗教、国籍、性别、婚姻状况、年龄或因申请人依赖公共援助而对信贷申请人进行歧视。
The other would have required the defendants to periodically train their employees on fair lending practices and civil rights law, implement written guidelines on how to properly assess fees, and fire employees who engage in discriminatory conduct or violate other parts of the order. 另一项条款则要求被告定期对其员工进行公平借贷实践和民权法培训，实施关于如何正确评估费用的书面指南，并解雇从事歧视行为或违反命令其他部分的员工。
The FTC also promised to not help anyone investigate the defendants’ compliance with the all-but-deleted sections, including the states it partnered with to investigate and litigate the cases in the first place. A spokesperson for the Arizona AG’s office says that they plan to continue enforcing the order by themselves. FTC还承诺不会协助任何人调查被告对这些几乎被删除条款的合规情况，包括当初与其合作调查和诉讼这些案件的州政府。亚利桑那州总检察长办公室发言人表示，他们计划继续自行执行该命令。
All three of the agreements concern federal court orders, which makes the agency’s approach even more unusual. Typically, when a federal agency wants to change a federal court order, it files a motion in court for a judge to consider the proposed changes. When all the parties—including any coplaintiffs—file together, it shows the judge that everyone is aligned and supportive of the changes. Not doing so can result in closer scrutiny. 所有三项协议都涉及联邦法院的命令，这使得该机构的做法更加不同寻常。通常情况下，当联邦机构想要更改联邦法院的命令时，会向法院提交动议，由法官考虑拟议的变更。当所有当事方（包括任何共同原告）共同提交时，这向法官表明各方立场一致并支持这些变更。如果不这样做，可能会导致更严格的审查。
The Arizona AG spokesperson says the FTC never notified them about the new agreement with DePaola. The agreement was never submitted to the court for review, according to the case docket. 亚利桑那州总检察长办公室发言人表示，FTC从未就与德保拉达成的新协议通知过他们。根据案件卷宗显示，该协议从未提交给法院进行审查。
A spokesperson for the Northern District of Illinois, where the FTC and the Illinois Attorney General worked together to sue Napleton Auto, another one of the defendants, says the FTC never asked the court to approve the new agreement or to modify the actual court order, which was finalized in 2022. 伊利诺伊州北区联邦地区法院的一位发言人表示，FTC从未要求法院批准该新协议，也未要求修改于2022年最终确定的实际法院命令。FTC此前曾与伊利诺伊州总检察长合作起诉了另一被告Napleton Auto。