Class Action Claims UBS Background Check Disclosure Form Violated Federal Law

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UBS Financial Services, Inc. is on the receiving end of a proposed class action that claims the banking and financial services firm obtained consumer reports on prospective employees without first providing a compliant disclosure form stating its intent to procure the reports.

According to the lawsuit, which was recently removed from state to federal court in Illinois, the background check disclosure form provided by UBS was not issued in a standalone document as required by federal law and contained “unnecessary additional language.”

The case explains that the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires that background check disclosure forms consist of a standalone disclosure informing the applicant that a consumer report will be procured.

“A statutorily compliant disclosure could be a simple statement as ‘we intend to obtain a consumer report about you for employment purposes,’” the complaint reads. “The statute demands nothing more.”

UBS’s disclosure, however, consists of “two pages of eye-straining type” buried within an 18-page application, the lawsuit alleges. According to the case, the disclosure unnecessarily includes “multiple statements about the categories of information that may be obtained, lists several potential sources of information, sets out a litany of notices for employment candidates in California, among many other categories of information.”

The suit alleges that it is UBS’s standard practice to issue a “wordy disclosure” that fails to comply with the FCRA’s requirements for a standalone document. Per the case, UBS’s conduct “is precisely the type that Congress sought to prevent” in passing the FCRA.

The lawsuit looks to cover anyone in the U.S. who, within the past five years and until the date of final judgment in the lawsuit, was the subject of a consumer report obtained by UBS pursuant to an FCRA disclosure form similar to the form provided to the plaintiff.

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