Photo of Stephen C. Piepgrass

Stephen leads the firm’s Regulatory Investigations, Strategy + Enforcement (RISE) Practice Group. He focuses his practice on enforcement actions, investigations, and litigation. Stephen primarily represents clients engaging with, or being investigated by, state attorneys general and other state or local governmental enforcement bodies, including the CFPB and FTC, as well as clients involved with litigation, with a particular focus on heavily regulated industries. He also has experience advising clients on data and privacy issues, including handling complex investigations into data incidents by state attorneys general other state and federal regulators. Additionally, Stephen provides strategic counsel to Troutman Pepper’s Strategies clients who need assistance with public policy, advocacy, and government relations strategies.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently issued a report, focused on the current student loan servicing market that laid out the results of several supervisory efforts related to student lending. Higher education lenders and loan servicers should pay close attention to the report’s findings, which signal the CFPB’s interest in enforcing the Consumer

In response to the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in Community Financial Services Association of America, Ltd. v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFSA) that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) funding mechanism is unconstitutional, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey sent a letter on October 24th to the CFPB, calling its continued operations into question and foreshadowing

Two dozen Republican attorneys general (AGs), led by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, sent a letter to the CEOs of credit card giants Visa, American Express, and Mastercard, warning them to halt plans that would add a new merchant category code for gun retailers. The International Organization for Standardization

In Episode 8 of the Regulatory Oversight Podcast, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford joins Troutman Pepper RISE attorneys Stephen Piepgrass and Ketan Bhirud to discuss a range of topics, including recent consumer protection actions and emerging trends his office examined over the past several years, and the criteria considered when determining to begin an investigation and when to take enforcement action.

This edition of Regulatory Oversight spotlights recent RICO Report Podcast episode “Pattern of Racketeering Activity,” featuring two firm Regulatory Practice Group attorneys Chris Carlson and Mary Grace Metcalfe. In this episode, podcast host and White Collar and Litigation Partner Cal Stein sits down with Chris and Mary Grace to discuss the RICO element requiring a pattern racketeering activity:

This article was originally published on August 19, 2022 in Reuters and is republished here with permission.

Companies today face increased risks from numerous regulatory bodies at the municipal, state, and federal levels. As we discussed in our previous article, “Preparing Companies for a New Day in Multistate AG Investigations,” sophisticated regulators —

This article was originally published in Westlaw Today and is republished here with permission.

As detailed in our articles[1] earlier this year, the “right to repair” movement has gained significant steam in the last year. The right to repair movement is an effort focused on ensuring that consumers and aftermarket businesses have the ability

In this episode of Regulatory Oversight, Troutman Pepper attorneys Nick Ramos, Christina Sava, and Stephen Piepgrass offer thoughts on how to incorporate, or not incorporate, regulatory approaches from the alcohol industry into the cannabis industry.

The cannabis industry’s rapid U.S. evolution poses many unique questions, most interestingly: What cannabis regulation will look like under federal legalization. Although (legal) cannabis is a brand new industry, it is not the first time the United States has come out of a prohibition era. So, learning from the regulatory schemes governing the highly regulated alcohol industry should assist in a smoother transition to a world where recreational cannabis usage is no longer considered a taboo in our society.