Rent-a-Center Unit Escapes CFPB Suit in Latest Pullback (1)

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau dropped its case against a Rent-a-Center Inc. unit the agency said tricked people into taking out high-cost loans, the latest in a string of cases the Trump administration has voluntarily closed.

The CFPB’s notice of voluntary dismissal with prejudice, filed Thursday in the US District Court for the District of Utah, comes after the agency and Acima Holdings LLC had fully briefed a motion to dismiss.

Because the CFPB chose to dismiss the case with prejudice, it can’t revive its claims against Acima.

“We welcome and appreciate the CFPB’s recognition that it was appropriate to dismiss its lawsuit and finally bring this longstanding matter to an end,” Mitchell Fadel, CEO of Upbound—the company under which Rent-a-Center now operates—said in a statement.

The dismissal of the Acima case is the latest in a series of enforcement actions brought under former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra that the agency has dropped.

The CFPB on March 4 dismissed its case against JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., and Wells Fargo & Co. over allegedly rushing out the Zelle peer-to-peer payments system without putting adequate fraud protections in place.

The CFPB also dropped cases in recent weeks against Capital One Financial Corp., TransUnion, a unit of Rocket Cos., and a unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Co., as well as suits against an installment lender and a student loan servicer.

Earlier in February, it filed a joint motion for dismissal with fintech lending platform SoLo Funds Inc.

The CFPB sued Acima in July claiming the company trapped people in high-cost loans on products they leased and then made it difficult to return items, which trapped them in the loans.

Acima late Thursday voluntarily dismissed its preemptive lawsuit against the CFPB that sought to block the enforcement action just days before it was filed. The CFPB had no authority to investigate and bring an enforcement action against Acima because the contracts it enters into with customers, as a rent- or lease-to-own company, aren’t loans, the company argued.

Aaron Allred, an Acima co-founder and its former CEO, was also a party to the case against the CFPB, brought in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) sued Acima in August claiming the company violated the state’s 16% usury cap.

Goodwin Procter LLP and Clyde Snow & Sessions represent Acima in the CFPB’s lawsuit.

Paul Hastings LLP represents Acima in its suit against the CFPB. Goodwin Procter LLP and Greenberg Traurig LLP represent Allred.

The cases are CFPB v. Acima Holdings, D. Utah, Notice of Voluntary Dismissal 3/6/25 and Acima Digital LLC v. CFPB, E.D. Tex., No. 4:24-cv-00662, Notice of Voluntary Dismissal 3/6/25.