Compliance & Regulation

Republicans are strongly considering using a rare procedural move to prevent President Obama from making a recess appointment to install a director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held that the Home Owner's Loan Act preempts state tort law claims alleging that Flagstar Bank FSB improperly represented itself as as a lender to collect brokerage fees on a home mortgage (Down v. Flagstar Bank F.S.B., E.D. Va., No. 3:10-cv-847, 4/4/11).

A successful Pennsylvania program that helps unemployed workers make their mortgage payments could be revamped to help underwater borrowers, according to a report by economists at the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

Wells Fargo & Co., in a new public filing, hiked its estimate for potential losses stemming from foreclosure-related litigation against the bank.

Senate Republicans declared war on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Thursday afternoon when they vowed to block the nomination of any permanent director unless Congress agrees to sweeping changes to the agency's structure.

The biggest obstacle to confirming a director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may not be Republicans or banking industry opposition but rather a ticking clock.

Space Coast Credit Union, which filed suit last week against Barclays Capital over CDOs the investment bank sold to Eastern Financial Florida CU, is expected to file similar suits over the next few weeks against other Wall Street firms in the 2009 failure of the one-time $2.4 billion credit union.

Freddie Mac said it may suffer $690 million of losses due to the bankruptcy and fraudulent activities of Taylor Bean Whitaker, a Florida-based lender that failed 18 months ago and became the subject of a large criminal investigation.

Marty Gruenberg, the No. 2 at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., is expected to be nominated shortly as the agency's chairman, according to several sources.

A House Financial Services subcommittee Wednesday approved a bill that creates a five-member commission to steer the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau instead of a single director.