28 The appellate courts opined on a variety of issues in 2017 affecting consumer financial services. Standing issues continued to make their regular appearance in the courts post-Spokeo, and the Fourth Circuit considered whether parties could compel arbitration. Finally, the Supreme Court decided Midland Funding, LLC v. Johnson in favor of creditors, which we identified in last year’s publication as a case to watch in 2017. HIGHLIGHTS PHH v. CFPB. The D.C. Circuit, sitting en banc, recently issued its long-awaited decision in PHH Corp. v. CFPB. As we reported in 2016’s year-in-review, in October 2016 a panel of the D.C. Circuit held that the CFPB’s single-director structure, under which the director can be removed only for-cause, violates the separation of powers and is unconstitutional. The panel also decided a number of important issues under RESPA and the CFPB’s administrative-enforcement statute. The D.C. Circuit granted the CFPB’s petition for rehearing en banc and heard reargument on May 24, 2017. On January 31, 2018, the en banc D.C. Circuit held that the provision of the Dodd-Frank Act shielding the single director of the CFPB from removal without cause is constitutional. In all, the court published seven separate opinions (the majority, three concurrences and three dissents) that totaled 250 pages. Significantly, although the en banc court reversed the three-judge panel on the constitutional question before the court, it reinstated that panel’s prior opinion with respect to the proper interpretation of Section 8 of RESPA. While the constitutional issue is the public focus, in an important win for the industry, the majority opinion specifically reinstated “the panel opinion insofar as it related to the interpretation of RESPA and its application to [the parties] to this case.” Opinion at 17.  First, the three-judge panel had held RESPA Section 8 permits reasonable payments for goods and services – the standard under RESPA Section 8(c) that the industry had always understood as the central benchmark for RESPA Section 8 compliance but which the Director had upended. As to the captive reinsurance arrangements at issue in the case, the panel upheld such arrangements “so long as the amount paid by the mortgage insurer for the reinsurance does not exceed the reasonable market value of the reinsurance.”  Importantly, the panel held that RESPA Section 8(c) creates a “safe harbor,” a ruling which expressly overruled the Director’s conclusion that Section 8(c) THE D.C. CIRCUIT’S EN BANC HOLDING IN PHH V. CFPB, AND OTHER MAJOR APPELLATE CASES DECIDED IN 2017