Enforcement

The U.S. Justice Department will decide in the next few months whether it will sue Moody's Corp. for allegedly inflating ratings on mortgage bonds at the heart of the 2008 financial meltdown.

Law enforcement authorities raided the headquarters of United Mortgage Trust in Grapevine, Texas, on Feb. 18, seeking documents related to the company's management.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau acknowledges that gearing up for the Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act integrated disclosures has been tough, and it promises to consider that fact in exams.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has launched a new initiative, called the Fair Housing Enforcement Program, aimed at targeting discrimination in rental and home sale transactions.

Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $3.2 billion to end a joint federal-state investigation into its handling of mortgage-backed securities, the fourth deal to be struck in a probe of the big U.S. banks' role in the subprime mortgage meltdown and the financial crisis it spawned.

U.S. Bancorp agreed to pay $10 million while Banco Santander settled for $3.4 million following missteps in how they handled earlier orders from regulators to fix faulty foreclosure practices, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

HSBC North America Holdings has agreed to pay $470 million to settle allegations it engaged in abusive practices in its mortgage foreclosure, origination and servicing operations.

Wells Fargo has reached a $16.2 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit regarding an alleged kickback scheme involving the shuttered Owings Mill, Md.-based Genuine Title.

Opus Capital Markets Consultants, a unit of Wipro, has created a division for identifying operational and loan-level risks within a residential mortgage servicing operation.

Wells Fargo & Co., the largest U.S. home lender, agreed to pay $1.2 billion to resolve claims related to its Federal Housing Administration mortgage practices.

Morgan Stanley will pay $63 million to settle a series of government lawsuits claiming the bank misrepresented securities it sold to banks that later failed.

While most federal banking regulators use enforcement actions as a way to shape industry practices, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is taking that to a whole other level, frequently using orders as a substitute for new rules or guidelines.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group took a surprise $5.2 billion hit to the value of its assets and set aside more money for past misconduct, limiting CEO Ross McEwan's ability to return capital to shareholders.

Bank of America and nine other banks have agreed to pay about $63 million to settle claims they misled the state of Virginia into buying faulty residential mortgage-backed securities.

Sun Bancorp in Mount Laurel, N.J., has agreed to pay $25,000 to resolve issues connected to the company’s former Sun Home Loans division.

A New Jersey man has been sentenced to six years in prison for running a scam that victimized distressed homeowners and private investors.

Ocwen Financial Corp. will pay $2 million to settle charges that it misstated its financial results in valuing complex mortgage assets, said the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Overlapping missions and jurisdictions are fueling competition between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission, according to former officials at both agencies.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s fourth-quarter net income dropped 65% because of the costs to settle a mortgage probe.

Goldman Sachs said it agreed to settle a U.S. probe into its handling of mortgage-backed securities for about $5.1 billion, cutting its fourth-quarter profit by about $1.5 billion.