No. 23-1654 

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT 

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

Townstone Financial, Inc. and Barry Sturner, 

Defendants-Appellees. 

On Appeal From the United States District Court 

for the Northern District of Illinois 

Hon. Franklin U. Valderrama 

Case No. 1:20-cv-4176 

BRIEF FOR THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION AS 

AMICUS CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF APPELLANT AND 

REVERSAL 

ANISHA S. DASGUPTA 

General Counsel 

MARIEL GOETZ 

Acting Director of Litigation 

JAMES DOTY 

Attorney, Division of Financial 

Practices 

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 

600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW 

Washington, DC 20580 

(202) 326-2628 

jdoty@ftc.gov 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY.........................................................1 

INTEREST OF THE AMICUS CURIAE ..................................................3 

STATEMENT ............................................................................................... 3 

ARGUMENT................................................................................................. 6 

A. The Anti-Discouragement Rule Is Authorized by ECOA’s 

Text and Was Approved by Congress .................................... 6 

B. The District Court’s Holding Would License Flagrant 

Discrimination ............................................................................ 11 

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................15 
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES 

Page(s) 

CASES 

Bd. of Governors of Fed. Rsrv. Sys. v. Dimension Fin. Corp., 474 U.S. 361 

(1986).......................................................................................................... 11 

Echevarria v. Chicago Title & Tr. Co., 256 F.3d 623 (7th Cir. 2001) ......... 10 

Gemsco, Inc. v. Walling, 324 U.S. 244 (1945)...................................... 4, 7, 12 

Howard v. City of Springfield, Ill., 274 F.3d 1141 (7th Cir. 2001) ...............12 

Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324 (1977) ...................... 8 

Jones v. Illinois Cent. Gulf R.R., 846 F.2d 1099 (7th Cir. 1988) ................. 10 

Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 575 (1978)........................................................... 8 

Loyd v. Phillips Bros., 25 F.3d 518 (7th Cir. 1994)........................................ 9 

Mourning v. Fam. Publ’ns Serv., Inc., 411 U.S. 356 (1973)....................... 4, 7 

Muro v. Target Corp., 580 F.3d 485 (7th Cir. 2009) .................................. 10 

Treadway v. Gateway Chevrolet Oldsmobile Inc., 362 F.3d 971 (7th Cir. 

2004) ..........................................................................................................12 

Tri-State Water Treatment, Inc. v. Bauer, 845 F.3d 350 (7th Cir. 2017) .... 8 

Tyson v. Sterling Rental, Inc., 836 F.3d 571 (6th Cir. 2016) .......................12 

United States v. Brien, 617 F.2d 299 (1st Cir. 1980) ....................................13 

United States v. Offices Known as 50 State Distrib. Co., 708 F.2d 1371 

(9th Cir. 1983) ...............................................................................................13 

United States v. O’Hagan, 521 U.S. 642 (1997)............................................. 7 

Volling v. Kurtz Paramedic Servs., Inc., 840 F.3d 378 (7th Cir. 2016)........ 9 

ii 
STATUTES 

15 U.S.C. § 1691(a)(2) .................................................................................... 11 

15 U.S.C. § 1691b(a) ......................................................................................... 1 

15 U.S.C. § 1691c(c) ......................................................................................... 3 

15 U.S.C. § 1691e(g) ................................................................................ 2, 6, 9 

Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, Pub. L. No. 93-495, 88 Stat. 1500 

(1974) ........................................................................................................... 3 

Pub. L. No. 111-203, 124 Stat. 1376 (2010) .................................................... 5 

RULES 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 29(a) ........................................................................................ 3 

REGULATIONS 

12 C.F.R. § 1002.4(b) ....................................................................................... 1 

40 Fed. Reg. 49298 (Oct. 22, 1975) ................................................................ 5 

42 Fed. Reg. 1242 (Jan. 6, 1977) .................................................................... 5 

OTHER AUTHORITIES 

Serving Communities of Color: A Staff Report on the Federal Trade 

Commission’s Efforts to Address Fraud and Consumer Issues Affecting 

Communities of Color ................................................................................ 13 

S. Rep. 102-167 (Oct. 1, 1991) ......................................................................... 6 

iii 
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”) prohibits creditors from 

discriminating against credit applicants on the basis of race, religion, sex, 

or other protected characteristics. In the statute, Congress expressly 

directed regulators to promulgate rules to further ECOA’s “purpose” (i.e., 

making credit available on a non-discriminatory basis) and to prevent the 

“evasion thereof.” 15 U.S.C. § 1691b(a). The relevant portion of Regulation 

B—first issued nearly fifty years ago—does precisely that, prohibiting 

creditors from “discourag[ing]” credit applications from the exact classes 

protected by the statute (the “Anti-Discouragement Rule”). 12 C.F.R. § 

1002.4(b). By outlawing discriminatory discouragement, the rule furthers 

the statute’s purpose and prevents what would be a devastating evasion of 

ECOA: Congress’s aim of equal access to credit would be a nullity if 

creditors could blatantly broadcast to protected classes that their 

applications were not welcome. The Anti-Discouragement Rule thus lies at 

the very core of the power vested in the CFPB by Congress. 

In holding the Anti-Discouragement Rule invalid and upending 

almost fifty years of law, the district court ignored Congress’s plain 

language directing regulators to further ECOA’s “purpose” and prevent its 

“evasion.” The court instead stated that, because ECOA reaches only 

1 
“applicant[s],” the CFPB cannot proscribe any misconduct that occurs 

before “the filing of an application.” See Mem. Opinion and Order 

(“Order”), ECF No. 110, at 16. This was clear error. As Supreme Court 

precedent confirms, the scope of an express grant of regulatory authority is 

defined by the plain terms of the grant, not by (as the district court held) a 

supposed tacit limitation from an unrelated part of the statute. The court 

also conspicuously ignored that Congress affirmed decades ago that 

discouraging applications for credit violates ECOA. See 15 U.S.C. § 1691e(g). 

The district court’s holding thus violated the most basic principles of 

statutory construction. 

If affirmed, the lower court’s decision would have profoundly negative 

consequences. Creditors would be emboldened to engage in flagrant forms 

of discrimination so long as that conduct occurred prior to the filing of an 

application—such as hanging a “Whites only” sign in a creditor’s window, 

or adopting an official policy of turning away on sight every Black customer 

to walk in the door. Sadly, these fears cannot be dismissed as merely 

hypothetical. The Federal Trade Commission receives thousands of 

complaints about credit discrimination each year, and the problem will only 

worsen if the prophylactic measures of the Anti-Discouragement Rule are 

2 
set aside. Fortunately, Congress granted the CFPB the authority to avoid 

this result. The decision below should be reversed. 

INTEREST OF THE AMICUS CURIAE 

The Federal Trade Commission is responsible for protecting 

consumers from deceptive or unfair trade practices across broad sectors of 

the economy. Since its enactment nearly 50 years ago, ECOA has 

authorized the FTC to enforce the statute and its implementing rule, 

Regulation B (including the Anti-Discouragement Rule), using all of the 

Commission’s powers under the FTC Act. See 15 U.S.C. § 1691c(c). The 

Commission therefore has decades of experience in monitoring credit 

markets for violations of ECOA and Regulation B and bringing law 

enforcement actions against violators. Given its longstanding role in 

enforcing ECOA and Regulation B, the Commission has a strong interest in 

their proper application and respectfully submits this brief under Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 29(a). 

STATEMENT 

In enacting ECOA, Congress provided that the Board of Governors of 

the Federal Reserve System (the “Board”) “shall prescribe regulations to 

carry out the purposes” of the statute. Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 

1974, Pub. L. No. 93-495, § 503, 88 Stat. 1500, 1522 (1974) (emphasis 

3 
added). And ECOA’s “purpose,” as inscribed in the statute by Congress, was 

to make “credit equally available to all creditworthy customers without 

regard” to protected characteristics. See id. § 502; 88 Stat. at 1521. 

Congress’s directive also specified several (non-exhaustive) categories 

of appropriate regulations, including rules that “in the judgment of the 

Board are necessary and proper to effectuate the purposes of [ECOA], [or] 

to prevent circumvention or evasion thereof . . . .” Id. § 503; 88 Stat. at 

1522. In sum, Congress commanded the Board to draft rules to further 

ECOA’s purpose—the Board “shall prescribe regulations”—and specifically 

invited the Board to issue rules to prevent statutory “evasion.” 

At the time ECOA was enacted, the Supreme Court had repeatedly 

held that substantially identical language authorized the type of rulemaking 

challenged here. Specifically, the Court held that a regulator tasked with 

furthering Congressional “purpose” and preventing statutory “evasion” may 

prohibit practices beyond those barred by the statute. See Mourning v. 

Fam. Publ’ns Serv., Inc., 411 U.S. 356, 369-72 (1973) (prohibition not 

covered by statute upheld as a valid exercise of anti-evasion authority); 

Gemsco, Inc. v. Walling, 324 U.S. 244, 255 (1945) (same). 

Shortly after ECOA’s passage, and in accordance with its explicit 

Congressional mandate, the Board issued Regulation B, which in relevant 

4 
part prohibited creditors from “mak[ing] any statements to applicants or 

prospective applicants which would, on the basis of sex or marital status, 

discourage a reasonable person from applying for credit or pursuing an 

application for credit.” See 40 Fed. Reg. 49298, 49307 (Oct. 22, 1975) (the 

“Anti-Discouragement Rule”).1 Both ECOA and the Anti-Discouragement 

Rule went into effect on the same day in 1975. Id. at 49310; 88 Stat. at 1525. 

For as long as federal law has prohibited discrimination in credit 

transactions, then, it has prohibited creditors from dissuading members of 

protected classes from applying for credit in the first place. (In 2010, 

Congress transferred primary rulemaking authority from the Board to the 

CFPB, which issued the (materially identical) version of the AntiDiscouragement Rule that is the subject of the current dispute. See Pub. L. 

No. 111-203, § 1085, 124 Stat. 1376, 2083–84 (2010).) 

In nearly fifty years, through multiple revisions to ECOA (see, e.g., 

supra n.1), Congress has never expressed the slightest disagreement with 

the Anti-Discouragement Rule. To the contrary, Congress has affirmed that 

1 While ECOA (and Regulation B) originally prohibited discrimination only 

on the basis of sex or marital status, Congress amended the statute in 1976 

to bar discrimination based on (among other things) race, color, religion, or 

national origin. A conforming version of the Anti-Discouragement Rule, 

barring discouragement on “any prohibited basis,” was issued shortly 

thereafter. See 42 Fed. Reg. 1242, 1253-54 (Jan. 6, 1977). 

5 
discriminatory discouragement violates ECOA. Specifically, after the AntiDiscouragement Rule took effect, Congress authorized the FTC and other 

agencies with ECOA enforcement authority to refer certain 

discouragement-related cases to the Attorney General. See 15 U.S.C. § 

1691e(g) (agencies “shall” refer cases where creditor has engaged in a 

“pattern or practice of discouraging or denying applications for credit in 

violation of [ECOA]”) (emphasis added). At the time, the AntiDiscouragement Rule contained ECOA’s only express prohibition on 

discriminatory discouragement. See S. Rep. 102-167, at *86 & n.8 (Oct. 1, 

1991) (Senate Report on amendment stating, “[d]iscouraging applications 

on a prohibited basis . . . [is] prohibited,” citing Regulation B). 

ARGUMENT 

A. The Anti-Discouragement Rule Is Authorized by 

ECOA’s Text and Was Approved by Congress 

ECOA expressly directs regulators to issue rules furthering the 

statute’s “purpose[]” of “mak[ing] credit equally available” to protected 

classes. And the Anti-Discouragement Rule directly advances this objective 

by prohibiting creditors from dissuading credit applications from the exact 

classes protected by the statute. The rule recognizes that Congress’s aim of 

“equally available” credit would come to nothing if creditors could, through 

6 
discriminatory discouragement, actively dissuade qualified individuals 

from applying for credit in the first place. 

Further, Congress expressly invited the CFPB to issue rules to prevent 

ECOA’s evasion (see supra p. 4), and the Anti-Discouragement Rule is an 

obvious and essential method of accomplishing this end. If, as the district 

court held, ECOA and Regulation B apply only after an individual formally 

submits an application, creditors could bypass the statute’s fair lending 

requirements entirely by preventing protected classes from applying for 

credit (through flagrantly discriminatory advertising, for example). The 

anti-evasion clause vests the CFPB with authority to avert this ill. 

 This plain-text reading of the statute is confirmed by Supreme Court 

precedent and Congressional action. First, at the time of ECOA’s passage, it 

was well established that enabling language of the type at issue here 

authorized an agency to regulate conduct beyond that expressly barred 

under the statute. See Mourning, 411 U.S. at 369 (under substantially 

identical enabling language, regulation properly outlawed conduct beyond 

that covered by statute); Gemsco, 324 U.S. at 255 (same, under similar 

enabling language). Cf. United States v. O’Hagan, 521 U.S. 642, 672-73 

(1997) (“A prophylactic measure, because its mission is to prevent, typically 

encompasses more than the core activity prohibited.”). As these cases 

7 
recognize, to hold instead that a regulator could prohibit only the same 

conduct barred by the statute would debilitate Congress’s anti-evasion 

language. Because Congress is “presumed to be aware” of judicial 

interpretations of its acts, this Court must interpret ECOA’s enabling 

provision consistent with Mourning and Gemsco. See Lorillard v. Pons, 

434 U.S. 575, 580-81 (1978); Tri-State Water Treatment, Inc. v. Bauer, 845 

F.3d 350, 355 (7th Cir. 2017). 

Second, the Supreme Court (and this Court) have endorsed the exact 

rationale animating the Anti-Discouragement Rule. Under Title VII, people 

who decline to submit “formal application[s] . . . because of [their] 

unwillingness to engage in a futile gesture” may bring a claim for 

employment discrimination because they are “as much a victim of 

discrimination as is he who goes through the motions of submitting an 

application.” See Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 366 

(1977). As the Supreme Court explained, “[i]f an employer should announce 

his policy of discrimination by a sign reading ‘Whites Only’ on the hiringoffice door, his victims would not be limited to the few who ignored the sign 

and subjected themselves to personal rebuffs.” Id. at 365. Likewise, this 

Court has recognized that “logic dictates that discrimination preventing 

applicants from applying also constitutes an adverse employment action.” 

8 
Volling v. Kurtz Paramedic Servs., Inc., 840 F.3d 378, 384 (7th Cir. 2016) 

(emphasis in original); see also Loyd v. Phillips Bros., 25 F.3d 518, 523 (7th 

Cir. 1994) (claim permitted where plaintiff “is deterred from applying by 

the very discriminatory practices he is protesting”). For the same reasons, 

discouragement works a discriminatory harm in the credit context, one that 

ECOA empowers the CFPB to prevent. 

Third, Congress has—through express statutory amendment— 

affirmed that discouragement violates ECOA. See Brief of the Consumer 

Financial Protection Bureau, at 22 (explaining that Congress has 

“endorsed” the Anti-Discouragement Rule). As discussed (see supra p. 6), 

Congress amended ECOA to require enforcement authorities to refer to the 

Attorney General cases where creditors “discourag[e] . . . applications” in 

violation of ECOA. 15 U.S.C. § 1691e(g). Because an application can be 

“discouraged” only before it is filed, the amendment confirms that the 

conduct covered by the Anti-Discouragement Rule violates the law. And as 

noted, the amendment’s legislative history states that discouragement is 

illegal under ECOA, citing Regulation B. See supra p. 6. Both the text and 

history of the amendment thus provide strong evidence that Congress was 

both aware of the Anti-Discouragement Rule and approved of it. 

9 
Against this overwhelming authority—the plain text of the statute, 

canonical principles of statutory construction, Supreme Court precedent, 

and Congressional approval—the district court held that the CFPB lacked 

the authority to issue the Anti-Discouragement Rule. Ignoring Congress’s 

express grant of regulatory authority, the district court held that this case 

turns on ECOA’s definition of the word “applicant.” ECOA bars 

discrimination against “applicant[s],” the court reasoned, and because—in 

the court’s view—“applicant” includes only those who have actually filed an 

application for credit, the CFPB cannot proscribe conduct that reaches 

more broadly. See Order at 15-16. 

As the above discussion makes clear, this analysis is flatly incorrect. 

Among other errors, the Court: (1) failed to address the dispositive issue of 

whether the Anti-Discouragement Rule falls within the CFPB’s mandate to 

further ECOA’s “purpose” and prevent its “evasion”;2 (2) held that the 

2 See Order at 24-25 (declining to “assess . . . whether [the AntiDiscouragement Rule] is reasonably related to [] ECOA’s objectives”). As 

this Court has emphasized, when assessing whether a regulation is valid 

under a regulatory grant of the type at issue here, the “scope of review is 

narrow.” Jones v. Illinois Cent. Gulf R.R., 846 F.2d 1099, 1101 (7th Cir. 

1988); see also Muro v. Target Corp., 580 F.3d 485, 493 n.9 (7th Cir. 

2009) (under enabling language substantially identical to ECOA’s, 

regulations upheld unless “demonstrably irrational”) (citation omitted); 

Echevarria v. Chicago Title & Tr. Co., 256 F.3d 623, 627 (7th Cir. 2001) 

(courts must give effect to regulations that are “reasonably related to the 

purpose of the enabling regulation”) (citation omitted). 

10 
 

CFPB’s express mandate is trumped by a supposed tacit limitation from an 

unrelated part of the statute; (3) held that the CFPB can bar only the same 

conduct already proscribed under ECOA; and (4) neglected even to 

mention Congress’s explicit affirmation that discouragement violates 

ECOA.3 These errors compel reversal. 

B. The District Court’s Holding Would License Flagrant 

Discrimination 

In addition to contravening both ECOA’s plain text and binding 

precedent, the district court’s holding would greenlight egregious forms of 

discrimination so long as they occurred “prior to the filing of an 

application.” See Order at 16. For example, though ECOA’s stated purpose 

is to make credit “equally available” to qualified members of protected 

groups, the district court’s holding would invite creditors to: 

 explicitly advertise that they seek applications only from White, 

English-speaking, or married applicants, or applicants not 

receiving public assistance;4 

3 This case is thus the reverse of Bd. of Governors of Fed. Rsrv. Sys. v. 

Dimension Fin. Corp., 474 U.S. 361 (1986), where the Supreme Court found 

that Congress had narrowed the definition of the relevant statutory word 

(“bank”) in multiple amendments. See id. at 366-68. 

4 In addition to the prohibited categories of discrimination listed above (see 

supra p. 5 & n.1), ECOA outlaws discrimination against applicants on the 

ground that their “income derives from public assistance programs.” 15 

U.S.C. § 1691(a)(2). 

11 
 

 turn away at first sight any prospective walk-in customer who 

appears to be a member of a protected class; 

 adopt an official customer service script that tells members of 

protected classes that they will not be permitted to submit 

applications; and 

 employ a 70-page application only for members of protected 

classes to discourage them from applying. 

In short, under the district court’s view, an infinite variety of 

discrimination, blatant or subtle, is available to creditors so long as it 

occurs before an application is filed. To say that this would frustrate 

ECOA’s purpose would be a profound understatement. The lower court’s 

opinion would cripple ECOA by enabling creditor misconduct so long as it 

was shifted to an earlier phase. Congress’s explicit grant of authority 

empowers the CFPB to craft rules to avoid that result.5 

The concern that the district court’s ruling would license the most 

potent forms of credit discrimination is not theoretical. Discrimination in 

the credit space remains all too common. The Commission estimates that, 

5 See, e.g., Gemsco, 324 U.S. at 255 (rejecting interpretation of enabling 

provision that would make statute a “dead letter”); Tyson v. Sterling 

Rental, Inc., 836 F.3d 571, 580 (6th Cir. 2016) (rejecting interpretation of 

ECOA that would make statute “a paper tiger”); Treadway v. Gateway 

Chevrolet Oldsmobile Inc., 362 F.3d 971, 976 (7th Cir. 2004) (interpreting 

ECOA so as to avoid an “absurd result[]”); cf. Howard v. City of 

Springfield, Ill., 274 F.3d 1141, 1148-49 (7th Cir. 2001) (rejecting 

interpretation that would “eviscerate” the statute at issue). 

12 
in the last year alone, it has received thousands of credit-related 

discrimination complaints. (And the FTC’s study of consumer complaints 

suggests that Black and Latino consumers are substantially more likely to 

be the victim of harmful financing practices.6) These numbers are strikingly 

high; even where consumers know they have been injured, the vast majority 

do not file formal reports. As a general matter, then, complaints represent 

only the “tip of the iceberg” of consumer harm. See, e.g., United States v. 

Offices Known as 50 State Distrib. Co., 708 F.2d 1371, 1374-75 (9th Cir. 

1983) (quoting United States v. Brien, 617 F.2d 299, 308 (1st Cir. 1980)). 

This is all the more true in the ECOA context, given that most 

discriminatory injuries are by their nature difficult to detect. For example, 

consumers often have no way of knowing if they were offered a worse 

interest rate on account of their membership in a protected class. The fact 

that consumer complaints persist, even with discrimination confined 

6 See “Serving Communities of Color: A Staff Report on the Federal Trade 

Commission’s Efforts to Address Fraud and Consumer Issues Affecting 

Communities of Color,” available at https://www.ftc.gov/system/files 

/documents/reports/serving-communities-color-staff-report-federal-tradecommissions-efforts-address-fraud-consumer/ftc-communities-colorreport_oct_2021-508-v2.pdf. The study found that people living in 

majority Black and Latino communities filed a higher share of reports 

regarding problems across a range of industries, including lending and auto 

financing. See id. at 45 & 46 Fig. B. 

13 
 

 

mostly to surreptitious forms, suggests that the problem would worsen 

dramatically if the district court were right and naked discrimination were 

permitted before an application is formally filed. 

 The FTC’s recent enforcement activity confirms the ongoing problem 

of discrimination in the provision of credit. In the last several years alone, 

for example, the FTC has brought multiple enforcement actions to vindicate 

the rights of Black and Latino customers under ECOA.7 Each case alleged 

that members of protected classes were systematically charged more for 

financing than similarly situated White customers. See id. The FTC has also 

alleged in several cases that the discrimination was intentional. In Liberty 

Chevrolet, for example, the Complaint alleged that the defendants 

instructed their representatives to charge Black and Latino customers 

higher fees and used “derogatory terms” to refer to such customers.8 These 

cases demonstrate the need for enforcement of ECOA as Congress 

intended, and they illustrate that the grim scenarios recounted above (see 

7 See FTC v. Passport Auto. Grp., Inc., No. 22-cv-02670 (D. Md. filed Oct. 

18, 2022); FTC & Illinois v. N. Am. Auto. Servs., Inc., No. 22-cv-01690 

(N.D. Ill. filed Mar. 31, 2022); FTC v. Liberty Chevrolet, Inc., No. 20-cv03945 (S.D.N.Y. filed May 21, 2020). 

8 See Complaint, FTC v. Liberty Chevrolet, Inc., No. 20-cv-03945 (S.D.N.Y. 

May 21, 2020), ECF No. 1, ¶ 26. 

14 
 

 

supra pp. 11-12) cannot be dismissed as mere hypotheticals should the 

district court’s holding stand. 

The Anti-Discouragement Rule has stood as a prophylactic measure 

for nearly fifty years, helping prevent the type of open discrimination 

discussed above. Without the rule, enforcement would shift from clearcut, 

easy-to-establish cases where the Anti-Discouragement Rule is flagrantly 

violated, to more challenging, intricate, fact-intensive matters. (The type of 

ECOA cases handled by the courts would shift accordingly.) The far more 

consequential effect, though, would be felt by consumers, who would—after 

decades of protection—be stripped of a pillar of Congress’s promise of 

discrimination-free credit markets. Because that result directly contravenes 

Congress’s intent as expressed in the statute, the district court’s holding 

should be reversed. 

CONCLUSION 

For the foregoing reasons, the Court should reverse the ruling below 

and reinstate the Complaint. 

Dated: June 21, 2023 Respectfully submitted, 

/s/ James Doty 

15 
 

ANISHA S. DASGUPTA 

General Counsel 

MARIEL GOETZ 

Acting Director of Litigation 

JAMES DOTY 

Attorney, Division of Financial 

Practices 

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 

600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20580 

(202) 326-2628

jdoty@ftc.gov 

16 
 

CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE 

This brief complies with the type-volume limitation in Federal Rule of 

Appellate Procedure 29 and Circuit Rule 29. It contains 3217 words, 

excluding the portions exempted by Federal Rule 32(f). 

 /s/ James Doty

 James Doty