Sarah Auchterlonie’s expertise is consumer finance and banking. She presently sits on the Colorado Banking Board and was previously an attorney with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), as well as an acting deputy enforcement director with the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection’s (CFPB) Office of Enforcement. Recently, Sarah co-authored the legal treatise, Consumer Finance Law and Compliance. She provides expert witness testimony on consumer finance regulatory issues and represents clients in regulatory proceedings and civil lawsuits.
Sarah along with a team of intellectual property, employment and corporate attorneys are responsible for the licensing, start-up or acquisition of dozens of financial technology business lines, including mortgage lenders, alternative financing, online lending, debt repayment, credit repair and cryptocurrencies.
As one of the few private practice attorneys in the nation with her combination of banking and consumer protection experience, Sarah represents companies in government investigations by state attorneys generals, the CFPB, state financial services departments and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In consumer injury matters and contract disputes involving consumer finance products and services, Sarah’s knowledge of financial regulations makes her a formidable litigator and gifted issue-spotter. She lends that knowledge to several American Indian tribal governments as they build and expand their consumer financial protection regulation, supervision and enforcement agencies.
Sarah’s notable work includes handling the CFPB's first administrative proceeding and appeal to the bureau director, In the Matter of PHH Corp., as well as ECOA settlements with mortgage lenders, FCRA investigations of lenders and credit reporting agencies, and FDCPA matters with debt collection firms.
Sarah’ s compliance expertise includes mortgages; electronic payments; credit information privacy and reporting;; debt collection; real estate settlement procedures;; payday, auto-title and small-dollar installment lending; multiple CFPB, FTC and Federal Reserve regulations and unfair, deceptive and abusive acts and practices (UDAAP); Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering Act (BSA/AML); releasing confidential supervisory information, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA); investigations of bank employee conduct; and investigations arising from the financial crisis.
Prior to government service, Sarah was a regulatory litigation associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP where she worked on finance and antitrust matters.
