Fair Lending

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After working through the night, the Congressional conference committee tasked with negotiating a final financial reform bill voted 27-16 to approve the bill and send it back to each chamber for a final vote on the conference report.

Recaps of the long day and night of negotiations and the final bill are available from Poltico…

If your company is one of the many companies that participates in originating, guaranteeing or servicing student loans made under the Federal Family Education Loan Program (“FFELP”) you should be aware of a recent putative class action filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In Sharon Cheslow v. Wells Fargo …

Last month, two subsidiaries of American International Group (“AIG”) agreed to pay $7.1 million to settle claims by the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) that the companies unlawfully charged African American borrowers higher mortgage fees over a period of three years as compared to white borrowers. In United States of America v. AIG Federal Savings Bank…

Recently, the United States Supreme Court, in its decision styled Andrew M. Cuomo v. The Clearing House Association, L.L.C., No. 08-453, reaffirmed that federal banking regulations do not pre-empt states from enforcing their own fair-lending laws against national banks.

This dispute arose following the New York State Attorney General’s attempt to investigate several banks’ residential real-estate lending practices in 2005. The Attorney General’s office had suspected discriminatory lending practices after reviewing reports that showed minority borrowers received a larger percentage of high-interest home loans than white borrowers. As part of that probe, the Attorney General sent letters to several national banks, in lieu of a subpoena, requesting that they provide certain non-public information regarding their mortgage lending practices. In response, the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC,” the chartering authority and federal regulator of national banks) and the Clearing House Association (a banking trade group) sued to block the Attorney General’s investigation, claiming that an OCC regulation promulgated under the National Bank Act pre-empted any state regulation or enforcement against national banks.

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Continue Reading State Regulators’ Powers Over National Banks Reaffirmed by U.S. Supreme Court

Which among the following businesses are potentially subject to consumer financial services laws, rules, and regulations?

A. a retail clothing chain
B. a bank or mortgage company
C. an internet retailer
D. a fast food franchisor
E. all of the above

If you answered E, “All of the above,” you are CORRECT. However, many companies do not…