In Thompson, et al. v. WFS Financial, Inc., Goldstein, Demchak, Baller, Borgen & Dardarian, along with co-counsel, brought a nationwide class action seeking an injunction to end discriminatory mark-ups on car loans made to African American and Latino customers.

A settlement was reached in the WFS case in August 2004, and received final approval from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee in November 2004.  Upon approval of the nationwide settlement, including our California law claims, the California court case was dismissed.  The main provisions of the WFS settlement include enhanced consumer notices and information relating to the negotiability of the interest rate on loans, a reduce cap on permissible mark-ups to 2.5% that will reduce many minority borrowers' interest rates on future WFS loans, and a $1 billion loan refinance program to enable minority borrowers with outstanding loans to reduce the interest rate applicable to their future loan payments by 1%.