WFS Financial, Inc.
In
Thompson, et al. v. WFS Financial, Inc., Goldstein, Demchak, Baller, Borgen & Dardarian together 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. The main provisions of the WFS settlement provided for enhanced consumer notices and information relating to the negotiability of the interest rate on loans, a reduced 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 which enabled minority borrowers with outstanding loans to reduce the interest rate applicable to their future loan payments by 1%.