2/1/2023

On November 8, 2022, Team GRC issued an “urgent” update about Military Lending Act (“MLA”) compliance. We warned that a non-profit organization, the Woodstock Institute, had sent an active-duty service member “shopper” into some pawnshops in Illinois. The non-profit alleged that its active-duty shopper had reported violations of the MLA by those pawnshops and issued a press release. At least one pawnshop heard from the Illinois state agency that regulates pawn transactions.

The state agency and the non-profit used their claims about MLA non-compliance to support enactment of an APR cap that would have made the MLA rules for calculating the Military Annual Percentage Rate (“MAPR”) applicable to all pawn transactions in Illinois.

Through monumental efforts by the Illinois Pawnbrokers Association, and help from the NPA, the IPA managed to keep the APR-cap legislation from being enacted in Illinois.

Defeat of the APR cap in Illinois does not mean that the non-profit organization…