Washington, DC – The Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) recently filed an amicus (friend of the court) brief with National Consumer Law Center in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to support Sergeant Terrance Moss’s lawsuit against lender Cleo AI Inc. on behalf of himself and similarly situated active-duty military personnel and their dependents seeking to hold Cleo accountable for violations of the Military Lending Act (MLA).
“App-based payday lenders violate the Military Lending Act (MLA) by saddling servicemembers with triple-digit debt,” said Monica Burks, policy counsel at CRL. “Multiple courts have rejected lenders’ efforts to avoid compliance with the MLA. CRL is proud to stand with servicemembers who wear the uniform as they fight unlawful high-cost debt-trap lenders that target their ranks.”
The brief includes robust evidence from CRL that refutes self-serving industry narratives and shows the consumer harms of payday lending apps. Structural design features of app-based payday loans, such as Cleo’s, extend consumer harms beyond the high costs of borrower, inhibiting borrower’s ability to pay essential bills and increasing the difficulty of covering the expenses of daily living.
Blue Star Families and the National Military Family Association were the other amici represented by the Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice at UC Berkeley School of Law.
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Press Contact: Alfred King alfred.king@responsiblelending.org