Dividend Solar Finance, LLC, and Fifth Third Bank Sales and Lending Practices Litigation
MDL No. 24-3128
On October 3, 2024, a Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) was established in federal court in Minnesota concerning certain federal litigation against Fifth Third Bank and its solar lending division, Dividend Solar Finance (“Dividend”). The MDL consolidated various class actions, individual federal court cases, and an enforcement action by the Minnesota Attorney General commenced against Dividend and certain other defendants into a single proceeding. Plaintiffs in these cases allege various combinations of claims that: (i) the amounts of the loans improperly included undisclosed finance fees; (ii) the solar energy systems they purchased are either not performing or are underperforming; and/or (iii) Dividend partnered with solar installers who misrepresented expected energy, financial and tax savings.
In the federal court system, when multiple cases are pending in several different district courts that involve common questions of fact, the law provides that the Judicial Panel on Multi District Litigation (“JPML”) can transfer all of the cases to one federal judge, if centralization will serve the convenience of the parties and the witnesses and promote the just and efficient conduct of the litigation for pretrial purposes. The JPML determined that these actions “share common questions of fact concerning, inter alia, the relationship between Dividend and the solar companies, the tactics employed by the solar companies to sell solar systems and originate loans, whether Dividend and the solar installers worked together to develop and employ such tactics, the nature of the sale and loan agreements, and representations made by the solar companies and Dividend regarding the solar power systems and the terms of the agreements.”