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Banking
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September 06, 2024
Military Borrowers Get Initial Nod On $64M USAA Settlement
USAA Federal Savings Bank garnered initial approval of a $64.2 million settlement that draws to a close nearly three years of litigation over claims it disregarded federal laws protecting military borrowers, according to an order filed Friday in North Carolina federal court.
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September 06, 2024
Morgan Stanley Fined $2M Over First Republic Exec's Trades
Massachusetts' top securities cop on Friday imposed a fine of $2 million on Morgan Stanley for failing to ensure that a New Republic Bank chairman hadn't relied on insider information when he dumped millions of dollars of the bank's stock in the days and months before its collapse.
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September 06, 2024
Atty Loses Bid To Revive NJ Malpratice Suit Against 2 Firms
A New Jersey state appeals court on Friday upheld the dismissal of an attorney's common law fraud and negligence claims against two law firms for allegedly misrepresenting a debt he owed.
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September 06, 2024
Glioblastoma Org. Wants End To Rival's Use Of 'GBM'
The Glioblastoma Foundation has hit a competing nonprofit with a suit alleging that the group's use of the initials "GBM" in its name has ripped off its trademark and sown confusion among donors who can't tell the two organizations apart.
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September 05, 2024
Menendez Ally Admits To Bank Fraud After Bribery Conviction
The former Mariner's Bank CEO convicted alongside former U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, who prosecutors said took gold bars and other luxuries as bribes, has again pled guilty in a separate case to a bank fraud charge related to a $1.8 million loan he took out in someone else's name, prosecutors announced Thursday.
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September 05, 2024
CFTC Says Ex-Commish's Signature Was Forged For $1.5M Scam
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has sued the operator of an unlicensed commodity pool for allegedly targeting dozens of Spanish-speaking immigrants in a $1.5 million Ponzi-like scheme that used a fictitious license containing a counterfeit CFTC seal and a forged commissioner signature to falsely promise investors guaranteed monthly returns.
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September 05, 2024
Unconstitutionality Of Transparency Act Clear, 11th Circ. Told
A small business group and one of its members have told the Eleventh Circuit that an Alabama federal judge correctly ruled that the Corporate Transparency Act is unconstitutional, so there was no need for them to demonstrate that the law fails to pass constitutional muster.
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September 05, 2024
KC Chiefs 'Superfan' Gets 17.5 Years For Robberies
A man widely known as a Kansas City Chiefs superfan nicknamed "ChiefsAholic" was sentenced Thursday to 17 and a half years in prison over charges that he robbed several Midwestern banks and laundered the money through nearby casinos.
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September 05, 2024
Texas Bank Ordered To Boost AML Compliance For Crypto Biz
The Federal Reserve has told a Texas institution to shore up "significant deficiencies" in its risk management and anti-money laundering procedures as they relate to crypto customers, among other concerns.
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September 05, 2024
7th Circ. Doubts JPMorgan Traders' Spoofing Appeal
The Seventh Circuit seemed skeptical Thursday about three former JPMorgan traders' assertion that evidentiary issues surrounding their underlying spoofing trials warrant unwinding their convictions for manipulating the market with fake orders for precious metals.
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September 05, 2024
CFPB Flags Rental Price-Fixing As Among FDCPA Concerns
In a Sept. 5 report to Congress, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said rent-setting algorithms of the sort used by RealPage could amount to price-fixing, making efforts to collect on inflated rental debt a violation of federal law.
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September 05, 2024
2nd Circ. Chilly To Mortgage-Backed Securities ERISA Suit
The Second Circuit appeared unlikely Thursday to revive a union pension fund's suit looking to hold Wells Fargo and Ocwen Financial Corp. liable for losses on mortgage-backed securities, with two judges signaling the risky loans the fund sued over might not be covered by federal benefits law.
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September 04, 2024
Ex-Discover Financial Exec Claims Bias Over Equity Clawback
A retired Discover Financial Services executive vice president sued the company in Illinois federal court on Wednesday alleging age and gender discrimination, saying she was the only woman to lose over $7 million in unvested equity awards over a credit card misclassification issue for which she wasn't even responsible.
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September 04, 2024
FINRA Beats Post-Jarkesy Challenge To Enforcement Powers
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has beaten back a broker's bid to use the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Jarkesy decision to challenge its enforcement regime, after a Pennsylvania federal judge found other high court precedent barred him from hearing the broker's constitutional challenge to the regulator's proceedings.
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September 04, 2024
UBS Financial Gets Wrapped Up In Cash Sweep Class Action
UBS Financial Services has been hit with a proposed class action suit alleging it prioritized its own financial interests and those of its affiliated banks over customers by using its cash sweep program to direct customers' uninvested cash balances into accounts that disproportionately benefited the investment bank.
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September 04, 2024
Dynapass Drops Patent Suit Against Bank Of America
A litigation outfit has agreed to drop its patent infringement allegations against Bank of America, ending a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas over the programming behind user-authentication software.
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September 04, 2024
Atty Tied To Ponzi Scheme Can't Discharge CFTC Debt
A Colorado federal judge on Wednesday denied an attorney's request to have his debt to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission discharged after he and others were found liable for $10 million for their roles in a Ponzi scheme.
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September 04, 2024
SEC Says $5M Fraud Scheme Targeted Venezuelan-Americans
A pair of Miami area residents and a company they control have agreed to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over $3.25 million to settle affinity fraud allegations involving a purported proprietary automated trading platform they were developing.
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September 04, 2024
Judge Says EB-5 Investors, Fund Must Disclose More Info
An Illinois federal judge told a group of Chinese investors and a development fund on Wednesday they both must provide additional information in a suit accusing the fund of making off with $13.2 million intended for the development of a Hawaii resort.
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September 04, 2024
Ex-Lender Says FDIC Can't 'Trap' Him In Dispute Without Trial
A former small-business financier has doubled down on his push to immediately halt an enforcement proceeding against him filed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., arguing it would be unjust to block his claims after a "sea change" in relevant case law.
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September 04, 2024
Fintech Investor Tries To Undo 'Formulistic' Nix Of NCino Suit
A pension fund invested in financial technology company nCino Inc. urged Delaware's Supreme Court on Wednesday to revive its suit against company directors and investment firm Insight Venture Partners over a $1.2 billion acquisition, arguing the Chancery Court "missed the mosaic for the tiles" by dismissing the case.
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September 04, 2024
FINRA Fines Broker-Dealer $900K Over Lax AML Compliance
Broker-dealer Brex Treasury has agreed to pay $900,000 to settle the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's claims that it overrelied on automated anti-money laundering compliance software not reasonably designed to meet its needs.
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September 03, 2024
WDTX Judge Agrees To Ship Apple E-Wallet Patent Case To Calif.
An Austin federal judge sent a patent case against Apple to California, finding "especially weighty" the tech giant's assertion that no employees relevant to the e-wallet infringement case brought by a Canadian company are located in the Western District of Texas and most are in the Golden State.
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September 03, 2024
8th Circ. Again Scraps Class Cert. For TD Ameritrade Clients
The Eighth Circuit reversed Tuesday a lower court's ruling certifying a class of TD Ameritrade clients for the second time in a lawsuit alleging the stockbroker routed orders to trading venues that didn't always provide the best execution, rejecting the named plaintiff's new class-wide damages theory based on commissions.
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September 03, 2024
Feds Abandon $12M Somali Fraud Case Against Atty
The U.S. government has dropped its Maryland federal court case against a lawyer who was set for trial this year on charges of misappropriating over $12 million in Somali state assets, citing "pre-trial evidentiary rulings."
Expert Analysis
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Opinion
States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions
Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.
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State Licensing Pitfalls Mortgage Servicers Must Beware
A recent enforcement action from the Washington Department of Financial Institutions demonstrates how subtle distinctions in state mortgage servicer licensing laws may come as a surprise to some companies, even if they never directly receive payments or interact with borrowers, says Clayton Swears at Hudson Cook.
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Best Text Practices In Light Of Terraform's $4.5B Fraud Deal
Text messages were extremely important in a recent civil trial against Terraform Labs, leading to a $4.5 billion settlement, so litigants in securities fraud cases need to have robust mobile data policies that address the content and retention of messages, and the obligations of employees to allow for collection, say Josh Sohn and Alicia Clausen at Crowell & Moring.
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Series
Solving Puzzles Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Tackling daily puzzles — like Wordle, KenKen and Connections — has bolstered my intellectual property litigation practice by helping me to exercise different mental skills, acknowledge minor but important details, and build and reinforce good habits, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.
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CFPB's New Registration Rule Will Intensify Nonbank Scrutiny
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recently finalized nonbank registration rule aimed at cracking down on repeat offenders poses significant compliance challenges and enforcement risks for nonbank financial firms, and may be particularly onerous for smaller firms, say Ketan Bhirud and Emily Yu at Cozen O'Connor.
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Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice
The Texas Professional Ethics Committee's recently issued proposed opinion finding that in-house counsel providing legal services to the company's clients constitutes the unauthorized practice of law is a valuable clarification given that a UPL violation — a misdemeanor in most states — carries high stakes, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.
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Navigating The New Rise Of Greenwashing Litigation
As greenwashing lawsuits continue to gain momentum with a shift in focus to carbon-neutrality claims, businesses must exercise caution and ensure transparency in their environmental marketing practices, taking cues from recent legal challenges in the airline industry, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.
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In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State
On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.
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Preparing For CFPB 'Junk Fee' Push Into Mortgage Industry
As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau considers expanding its "junk fee" initiative into mortgage closing costs, mortgage lenders and third parties must develop plans now that anticipate potential rulemaking or enforcement activity in this space, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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How High Court Approached Time Limit On Reg Challenges
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve Board effectively gives new entities their own personal statute of limitations to challenge rules and regulations, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh's concurrence may portend the court's view that those entities do not need to be directly regulated, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.
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Series
Florida Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q2
The second quarter of 2024 brought two notable bills that will affect Florida's banking and finance community across many issues, including virtual currency abandonment, cancellation of financial services on the basis of political opinions, and the exemption amount of motor vehicles, say Joshua Prever and Andrew Balthazor at Holland & Knight.
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How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts
As law firms increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence tools to produce legal text, attorneys should be on guard for the overuse of cohesive devices in initial drafts, and consider a few editing pointers to clean up AI’s repetitive and choppy outputs, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.
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Series
After Chevron: Opportunities For Change In FHFA Practices
The U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of the Chevron doctrine should lead to better cooperation between the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Congress, and may give the FHFA a chance to embrace transparency and innovation and promote sustainable housing practices, says Mehdi Sinaki at Michelman & Robinson.
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Supreme Court's ALJ Ruling Carries Implications Beyond SEC
In its recent Jarkesy opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the types of cases that can be tried before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's in-house administrative law judges, setting the stage for challenges to the constitutionality of ALJs across other agencies, say Robert Robertson and Kimberley Church at Dechert.
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Roundup
North Carolina Banking Brief
In this Expert Analysis series, attorneys provide quarterly recaps discussing the biggest developments in North Carolina banking regulation, litigation and policymaking.