Compliance

Citigroup's $285 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over a nonprime MBS investment was rejected Monday by a federal judge who said he hadn't been given enough facts to approve it.

Kirchmeyer & Associates Inc., a Buffalo, N.Y.-based appraisal management company, is now offering its clients collateral valuation insurance which protects them against default losses including repurchase expenses. Eligible loan types include first and second mortgages as well as home equity lines of credit.

The Attorney General of Arizona has filed a complaint against Mortgage Capital USA and its CEO, Gustavo Anaya, for allegedly conducting an illegal home loan modification scheme involving multiple business entities.

A former Pennsylvania real estate agent has been convicted of four counts each of wire fraud and money laundering for defrauding more than $6.2 million from 14 mortgage lenders and 34 homeowners.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to provide early warning of possible enforcement actions. Subjects under investigation to be given opportunity to respond to CFPB concerns, On Nov. 7, CFPB outlined plans to provide advance notice of potential enforcement actions to individuals and firms under investigation.

A New York court has said that an appraisal-related suit involving First American Corp. and its former eAppraiseIT LLC unit, now a part of CoreLogic, can move forward, ruling against a jurisdictional challenge.

A whistleblower lawsuit filed by two mortgage brokers has been unsealed in Federal District Court in Atlanta claiming that 13 banks and mortgage companies have cheated veterans out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

A federal jury has convicted the leader of a mortgage fraud scheme that guaranteed to pay off homeowners' mortgages but failed to fulfill this promise.

On any given morning when I'm not running off to catch a jet to someone else's city to preach the gospel of safe lending and investing the Interthinx way, you can find me tuning in to one of the day's morning “news” shows during a cardio workout; mostly to exercise rolling my eyes at what the world has been up to the day before.

The first-ever statewide PACE program, which already has $2 billion of validated bonding capacity from a Florida court, is on an aggressive track toward implementation with the selection of nationally recognized financial advisors.

November remittance data showed that the $192 million loan backed by the Manhattan Apartment Portfolio was liquidated. According to Barclays Capital CMBS analysts, if the loan's disposition strategy is right, this might be considered the largest note sale ever in CMBS.

The extraordinary actions taken by the Fed during the financial crisis were a "problematic exercise in credit allocation," according to Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey M. Lacker, who added purchases of U.S. Treasury securities could have created the same "expansion of reserve supply."

The unemployment rate will remain above 7% for the next three years and the country won't be at “maximum employment until 2016,” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco president and chief executive John C. Williams said Friday.

The Fed can do more to help the economy, and buying mortgage-backed securities could be a good start, since it would boost the beleaguered housing market, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley said Thursday.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded the rating of Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) to A2 from A1 on Friday.

In the wake of the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, insurers and bankers feuded over directors and officers' liability policies. At issue: whether D&O policies covered claims brought by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation against a failed bank's officers.

The risk of employment and income-related mortgage fraud rose nearly 9% in the third quarter compared to a year ago, and is up almost 50% from 2009, according to a new report from Interthinx.

The appeals court ruling against MERS that caused the GSEs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to reinitiate foreclosures on more than 1,600 Michigan properties was overturned by the state's highest court this week.

A surprising amount of resiliency exists in terms of housing demand but the supply imbalance will likely persist for another couple years, the chief investment officer of Goldman Sachs' private wealth management unit said Thursday.

In the first criminal case involving robo-signing of mortgage documents, Nevada's attorney filed charges Wednesday against two people accused of filing tens of thousands of false documents.