National law firm Ballard Spahr has announced the creation of a “Marketplace Lending Task Force” to assist the growing number of direct lending platforms manage the challenges of getting big – fast. Recently there has been additional regulatory interest by the federal government. The US Treasury has launched a “Request for Information” regarding the industry and one of the areas up for discussion is the current regulatory environment. Ballard Spahr is being pro-active having assembled a “dedicated task force of attorneys with specific experience in this sector” to help lenders “navigate potential enforcement issues”.
“Ballard Spahr has always been ahead of the curve on consumer financial services issues – marketplace lending is no exception,” states Scott M. Pearson, a Los Angeles-based partner in the firm’s Consumer Financial Services Group and leader of the task force. “The lawyers on this task force have decades of experience counseling consumer and small business finance companies and can develop, refine, and defend financial products in every jurisdiction in the country.”
The debt markets are huge in the US. Far bigger than equity markets. Lending is measured in trillions of dollars and direct lenders are poised to capture an ever-growing share of this sector of finance. Inevitably legal issues will arise.
