The United States Department of Justice announced last week that Westlake Services LLC and its subsidiary, Wilshire Consumer Capital LLC, have agreed to pay $760,788 to resolve allegations the companies violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (“SCRA”) by repossessing 70 vehicles owned by SCRA-protected servicemembers without obtaining the required court orders.

The CFPB referred the matter to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division’s Housing and Civil Enforcement Section in 2016, after receiving a complaint that Los Angeles-based Westlake Services and Wilshire Consumer Capital were conducting repossessions in violation of the SCRA.  The Justice Department sued the companies in United States District Court for the Central District of California.

The United States’ complaint alleged that Westlake and Wilshire repossessed vehicles in violation of 50 U.S.C. § 3952(a) and 50 U.S.C. § 3953(c), respectively.  Both provisions require lenders to obtain a court order before repossessing a covered servicemember’s motor vehicle, with the latter provision extending that protection for one year following the termination of military service.  The complaint alleged the companies failed to check the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) database to determine whether customers were SCRA-protected servicemembers before repossessing vehicles without a court order.

The settlement agreement requires that Westlake and Wilshire pay $10,000 per violation to each of the affected servicemembers, plus an amount to compensate them for any lost equity they suffered in the repossessed vehicle, plus interest.  The companies must also repair the credit reporting of all affected servicemembers and pay a $60,788 civil penalty to the United States.  The companies also agreed that they would not repossess an SCRA-protected servicemember’s vehicle without obtaining a court order or valid SCRA waiver in the future and that they would implement enhanced policies and procedures and training to ensure compliance with SCRA requirements.  The Settlement Agreement is available here.

This is not the first time that Westlake and Wilshire have been the target of a federal agency.  In 2015, the companies entered into a Consent Order with the CFPB under which the companies agreed to pay a $4.25 million civil money penalty and $44.1 million in refunds and debt forgiveness to borrowers for alleged unlawful conduct including engaging in debt collection practices in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practice Act and advertising auto financing in violation of the Truth in Lending Act.  The alleged unlawful debt collection conduct included:  threatening to refer borrowers for criminal prosecution; illegally disclosing information about debts to borrowers’ employers, friends and family; and using a software program, Skip Tracy, which disguised the phone number and caller ID text information of outbound calls so that the calls appeared to originate from other callers, such as pizza delivery services, flower shops or the borrower’s family and friends.  See “Consent Order with the CFPB.”