“Three enforcement leaders formerly at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) are joining Protect Borrowers as senior fellows to launch a strategic enforcement project focusing on the weaponization of corporate power that is plunging working people into financial crisis. Eric Halperin, Cara Petersen, and Tara Mikkilineni bring decades of enforcement, litigation, and civil rights experience both inside and outside government to Protect Borrowers for a new initiative that will use legal and policy levers to challenge products and practices that exploit workers, consumers, and small business owners. Between 2021 and 2025, Halperin, Petersen, and Mikkilineni helped lead a team at the CFPB that secured orders for more than $9.5 billion in penalties and payments to consumers. They developed innovative legal theories to address predatory practices, coordinated enforcement actions with broader policy initiatives to achieve marketwide impact, worked closely with state and local law enforcement partners, and brought enforcement actions against the nation’s largest Wall Street banks and tech companies. As part of this strategic litigation project, they will use this unique experience to develop litigation that will challenge entrenched and emerging corporate abuses. They will also expand these forward-looking legal and policy ideas to a wide host of illegal practices that affect Americans’ everyday economic lives, and strategically partner with private firms, state and local law enforcers, and advocacy organizations to maximize the impact of this work.”
- Protect Borrowers (formerly Student Borrower Protection Center) is a nonprofit organization led by a team of experts, lawyers, and advocates fighting to build an economy where debt doesn’t limit opportunity. We investigate financial abuses, take predatory companies to court, and push for policies to protect working people from debt traps. We aim to deliver immediate relief to families while building power, driving systemic change, and fighting for racial and economic justice. Learn more at protectborrowers.org
