Litigation |
9 Months Ended |
|---|---|
Sep. 30, 2024 | |
| Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract] | |
| Litigation |
13. Litigation
The Company’s business is subject to legal proceedings, examinations, investigations, and reviews by various federal, state, and local regulatory and enforcement agencies as well as private litigants such as the Company’s borrowers or former employees. At any point in time, the Company may have open investigations with regulators or enforcement agencies, including examinations and inquiries related to its loan servicing and origination practices. These matters and other pending or potential future investigations, examinations, inquiries, or lawsuits may lead to administrative or legal proceedings, and possibly result in remedies, including fines, penalties, restitution, alterations in business practices, or additional expenses and collateral costs.
As a litigation or regulatory matter develops, the Company, in conjunction with any outside counsel handling the matter, evaluates on an ongoing basis whether such matter presents a loss contingency that is probable and reasonably estimable. If, at the time of evaluation, the loss contingency is not both probable and reasonably estimable, the matter will continue to be monitored for further developments that would make such loss contingency both probable and reasonably estimable. Once the matter is deemed to be both probable and reasonably estimable, the Company establishes an accrued liability and records a corresponding amount to litigation related expense. The Company will continue to monitor the matter for further developments that could affect the amount of the accrued liability that has been previously established. For certain matters, the Company may determine that a loss is not probable but is reasonably possible or may consider a loss to be probable but cannot calculate a precise estimate of losses. For these matters, the Company may be able to estimate a range of possible loss. In determining whether it is possible to provide an estimate of loss or range of possible loss, the Company reviews and evaluates its material litigation and regulatory matters on an ongoing basis, in conjunction with any outside counsel handling the matter. Based on our assessment of the facts and circumstances, we do not believe any of these matters, individually or in the aggregate, will have a material adverse effect on our financial position, results of operations, or cash flows in a future period.
The Company is a defendant in three representative lawsuits alleging violations of the California Labor Code and brought pursuant to the California Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”). The cases have been coordinated. On November 4, 2022, the court ordered that each of the plaintiffs’ individual PAGA claims must be arbitrated and that their representative PAGA claims will be stayed pending a ruling by the California Supreme Court in the third-party case Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc. On July 17, 2023, the California Supreme Court issued its decision in Adolph, ruling that an order compelling arbitration of individual claims does not strip the plaintiff of standing to litigate the representative portion of the PAGA claim. The Company has settled two of the three individual arbitration claims for a de minimis amount and is in different stages of the remaining individual arbitration claim and the representative PAGA claims. Generally, the representative PAGA claims remain stayed until the individual claims are resolved. Due to the unpredictable nature of litigation generally, and the wide discretion afforded the Court in awarding civil penalties in PAGA actions, the outcome of these matters cannot be presently determined, and a range of possible losses cannot be reasonably estimated. Although the actions are being vigorously defended, the Company could, in the future, incur judgments or enter into settlements of claims that could have a negative effect on its results of operations in any particular period.
Legal expenses, which include, among other things, settlements and the fees paid to external legal service providers, were $0.7 million and $2.8 million for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024, respectively, and
$0.5 million and $2.6 million for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2023, respectively. These expenses are included in general and administrative expenses in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations.
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