Welcome to our weekly roundup of big regulatory and compliance developments. I'm C. Ryan Barber here in Washington. Comments, tips? Reach me at [email protected] and on Twitter @cryanbarber. My desk line: 202-828-0315.

The skirmish between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency intensified this week over the consumer agency's push to restrain the scope of forced arbitration, Reuters reports. “There is no basis for claiming that the arbitration rule puts the federal banking system at risk,” CFPD Director Richard Cordray wrote in a letter to Keith Noreika, the acting head of the OCC. The CFPB's move forward on a rule to restrict banks and financial institutions from curtailing the power of class actions will test the resolve of Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration to fight over the merits of the rule. [The National Law Journal]

Uber drivers, meanwhile, won a preliminary order this week certifying a class action challenging the ride-hailing company's classification of its workforce as independent contractors rather than employees. Read the ruling here. The classification issue, unresolved in various Uber cases, is one of the central labor disputes in the gig economy. [The New York Times]

A California state agency on Thursday fined an Airbnb host who discriminated against a guest—a UCLA law student—based on race. The host agreed to pay $5,000 in damages and take a college-level course in Asian-American studies, the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing said. [The Recorder]

SEC Chairman Jay Clayton this week, delivering his first public remarks as the agency's leader, laid out his agenda. “Being a victim of a cyber penetration is not, in itself, an excuse. But, I think we need to be cautious about punishing responsible companies who nevertheless are victims of sophisticated cyber penetrations,” Clayton said. Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation has this roundup.

Secret teams of lawyers, spread across federal agencies in Washington, are soliciting comments and crafting the Trump's deregulatory agenda, according to NYT and ProPublica. Also: The U.S. Senate this week confirmed Neomi Rao to lead the Trump office that will oversee the administration's deregulatory push. [The New York Times]

HSBC Bank will be allowed to keep a compliance monitor's report secret after all. A federal appeals court in New York on Wednesday said a trial judge didn't have power to order the report unsealed. The Justice Department had aligned with the bank, represented by Paul Clement, in the dispute. [The New York Law Journal]

Over on Capitol Hill, Trump's two picks for the NLRB, William Emanuel of Littler Mendelson and Marvin Kaplan, an OSHA lawyer, faced pointed questions from Democrats on Capitol Hill at their confirmation hearing. Emanuel has long advocated for major U.S. companies, raising questions about whether he would harbor any anti-union bias. [The National Law Journal]

Philip Morris has waged a secretive campaign for years to undercut the World Health Organization's efforts to curb smoking and combat the influence of the tobacco industry, according to documents revealed to Reuters. In one of the largest ever tobacco industry leaks, Philip Morris reportedly has taken its fight around the globe, targeting conferences where anti-smoking guidelines are set and reducing the role of health officials at those gatherings. [Reuters]

DraftKings and FanDuel called off their merger plans, a month after the Federal Trade Commission sued to block the deal. In separate statements, the online fantasy sports rivals did not reference any legal or regulatory as the reason for their decision to abandon the deal. [The Wall Street Journal]

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is demolishing Obama-era regulations designed to protect students who needed federal assistance to pursue a degree. Among the more than half dozen regulations she's targeted is the so-called “gainful employment” rule, which threatens to withhold federal aid to vocational programs whose graduates are consistently left with more debt than they can repay. [The Washington Post]