A US judge has granted a preliminary injunction preventing the Trump administration from gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) while a legal case on the administration’s authority to do so is decided.
The ruling is a victory for the federal workers’ union, which argued that Trump was violating the constitution by attempting to shut down an agency established by Congress.
The union claims that attempts to close the CFPB have already left many consumers without sufficient means of redress for complaints regarding financial services providers.
The CFPB has increasingly become a check on the technology industry, which has moved into the financial services space, and terminating its tech staff would remove this oversight.
Acting director of the CFPB, Russell Vought, told staff on 10 February to “stand down from performing any work task”, according to testimony from employees.
In her ruling, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said she had little confidence that the defence could be trusted and that “the RIF [reduction-in-force] notices that have already been prepared will go out before the ink is dry”.