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  • FHFA Announces Settlement Of Litigation With Investment Bank

    Securities

    On August 22, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that it settled litigation with a major investment bank, other related companies, and several individuals over alleged violations of federal and state securities laws in connection with private-label mortgage-backed securities purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between 2005 and 2007. In 2011, FHFA, as conservator for the two GSEs brought suit in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York seeking relief for damages that allegedly resulted from a failure to adequately disclose risks related to the subject MBS offerings. Under the terms of the settlement, the bank is required to pay $3.15 billion to repurchase securities that were the subject of the claims in FHFA’s lawsuit. The difference between that amount and the securities’ current value is approximately $1.2 billion. According to FHFA, that difference is sufficient to effectively make the two GSEs whole on their investments. With this settlement, FHFA has resolved sixteen of the eighteen RMBS suits it filed in 2011. For details on those settlements, please see FHFA’s update on private-label securities suits. For specifics relating to how the August 22 settlement will impact each of the GSEs, please see the purchase and settlement agreements with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

    Freddie Mac Fannie Mae RMBS

  • Fannie Mae Issues Lender Letter On Mortgage Loan Requirements

    Lending

    On August 25, Fannie Mae issued Lender Letter LL-2014-04, which reminds lenders that when a mortgage loan is selected by Fannie Mae for an anti-predatory and HOEPA compliance review, the lender must provide requested loan information to Fannie Mae. Further, the letter reminds sellers that mortgage loans with either an annual percentage rate or total points and fees payable by the borrower that exceed the applicable HOEPA thresholds are not eligible for delivery to Fannie Mae. Additionally, Fannie Mae released an optional worksheet, available on the Fannie Mae website, designed to assist lenders in responding to any information requests from Fannie Mae. This letter highlights the continued focus of Fannie Mae regarding its anti-predatory lending quality control process.

    Fannie Mae HOEPA Predatory Lending

  • FHFA Seeks Comments On Proposed Single GSE Security

    Lending

    On August 12, the FHFA requested comments on the structure of a proposed single security that would be issued and guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (the GSEs). The implementation of the single security would be part of a “multi-year initiative” to build a common securitization platform. The request explains that the proposed single security would generally encompass many of the pooling features of the current Fannie Mae Mortgage Backed Security (MBS) and most of the disclosure framework of the current Freddie Mac Participation Certificate (PC). The single security would have key features that exist in the current market, such as: (i) a payment delay of 55 days; (ii) pooling prefixes; (iii) mortgage coupon pooling requirements; (iv) minimum pool submission amounts; (v) general loan requirements, such as first lien position, good title, and non-delinquent status; (vi) seasoning requirements; and (vii) loan repurchase, substitution, and removal guidelines. The GSEs would continue to maintain their separate Servicing and Selling Guides for the single security. The FHFA is especially interested in comments on how to preserve “to-be-announced” (TBA) eligibility and ensure that legacy MBS and PCs are “fully fungible” with the single security. The FHFA also seeks specific input on: (i) what key factors regarding TBA eligibility status should be considered in the design of and transition to a single security; (ii) what issues should be considered to ensure broad market liquidity for the legacy securities; (iii) what operational, system, policy, or other effects on the industry should be considered; and (iv) what can be done to ensure smooth implementation of a single security with minimal risk of market disruption. Comments are due by October 13, 2014.

    Freddie Mac Fannie Mae FHFA

  • SDNY Orders Bank To Pay $1.3 Billion Following Verdict In GSE Civil Fraud Case

    Lending

    On July 30, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered a bank to pay a nearly $1.3 billion civil penalty after a jury found the bank liable in October 2013 on one civil mortgage fraud charge arising out of a program operated by a mortgage lender the bank had acquired. The case was the first in which the government alleged violations of FIRREA in connection with loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The government originally sought damages of $1 billion based on alleged losses incurred by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Subsequently the government argued the penalty should be calculated not based on loss to the GSEs, but rather based on gross gain to the lender, in order to accomplish “FIRREA’s central purpose of punishment and deterrence.” The government calculated a gross gain of $2.1 billion, and requested that the court impose a penalty in that amount.

    In its order on civil penalties, the court noted that FIRREA provides no guidance on how to calculate a gain or loss or how to choose a penalty within the broad range permitted. To quantify the gain or loss on the 17,611 loans at issue, the court focused on the general principle that the “civil penalty provisions of FIRREA are designed to serve punitive and deterrent purposes and should be construed in favor of those purposes.” The court determined that both gain and loss should be viewed in terms of how much money the lender “fraudulently induced” the GSEs to pay. Even though many of the loans were in fact high quality, the Court included all of the loans in the gain and loss analysis because the jury found that the lender engaged in an intentional scheme to defraud the GSEs and that the lender intended to represent loans as being materially higher quality than they actually were. The court reasoned that the “happenstance that some of the loans may still have been of high quality should not relieve the defendants of bearing responsibility for the full payments they received from the scheme, at least not if the purposes of the penalty are punishment and deterrence.” As a result, the Court found the proper measure of both gain and loss to be the amount Fannie and Freddie paid for all loans at issue, and set $2,960,737,608 as the statutory maximum for the penalty. As a compensating factor, the court considered that 57.19 percent of the loans were not materially defective and reduced the penalty to 42.81 percent of the statutory maximum, or $1,267,491,770.

    Freddie Mac Fannie Mae Civil Fraud Actions False Claims Act / FIRREA SDNY

  • Fannie Mae Reminds Servicers Of Adverse Action Notice Requirements

    Lending

    On July 30, Fannie Mae issued a servicing notice to remind servicers of requirements pertaining to Adverse Action Notices. The notice states that Fannie Mae requires a servicer to send an Adverse Action Notice to a borrower within 30 days after Fannie Mae advises the servicer through HomeSaver Solutions Network (HSSN) of the declination of the modification request if: (i) the servicer submitted the request to Fannie Mae through HSSN for a mortgage loan modification decision; and (ii)  the borrower was current on the date that Fannie Mae advised the servicer that Fannie Mae declined the mortgage loan modification request. In such cases, the servicer must: (i) maintain a copy of the Adverse Action Notice in the mortgage loan servicing file; and (ii) provide Fannie Mae a copy of the Adverse Action Notice the servicer sends to the borrower by uploading it to HSSN. At a minimum, if the servicer elects to use its own Adverse Action Notice as opposed to the Fannie Mae-provided form, it must: (i) inform the borrower that Fannie Mae as the owner of the mortgage loan reviewed the mortgage loan modification request; (ii) provide Fannie Mae’s contact address; (iii) provide the reason Fannie Mae did not approve the request, in addition to the reason the servicer did not approve the request; and (iv) identify the credit reporting agency and contact information, if applicable. The notice also alerts servicers of updates to the Allowable Foreclosure Attorney Fees Exhibit, Evaluation Model Clauses, and the Master Custodial Agreement (Form 2003).

    Fannie Mae Mortgage Servicing

  • Fannie Mae Updates Fraud Notice Requirements, Policies Regarding Significant Derogatory Credit Events, Other Selling Topics

    Lending

    On July 29, Fannie Mae issued Selling Guide Announcement SEL-2014-10, which includes updates and clarifications regarding numerous selling topics. The announcement states that the long-standing requirement that a lender must notify Fannie Mae immediately if it learns of any misrepresentation, breach of selling warranty, or fraud is being updated to clarify Fannie Mae’s expectation that the lender perform due diligence to establish a reasonable belief that a misrepresentation, breach of selling warranty, or fraud may have occurred prior to making the self-report to Fannie Mae. Several other changes in the announcement relate to significant derogatory credit events, and many of them were previously announced in the Desktop Originator/Underwriter Release Notes. These changes relate to, among other things, waiting periods related to: (i) mortgage debt discharged through bankruptcy; (ii) a preforclosure sale or deed-in-lieu of a foreclosure; and (iii) charge off accounts. In addition, the announcement (i) provides a table of policy updates and clarifications regarding lender quality control processes; (ii) describes changes to the MBS buyup and buydown ratio grids; and (iii) updates property insurance requirements for condos, co-ops, and PUDs.

    Fannie Mae Mortgage Origination

  • FHFA OIG Assesses Risks From Smaller Lenders And Nonbank Mortgage Companies

    Lending

    On July 17, the FHFA Office of Inspector General (OIG) published a report on risks to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) related to purchasing mortgages from smaller lenders and nonbank mortgage companies. The report states such lenders present elevated risk in the following areas: (i) counterparty credit risk—smaller lenders and nonbank lenders may have relatively limited financial capacity, and the latter are not subject to federal safety and soundness oversight; (ii) operational risk—smaller or nonbank lenders may lack the sophisticated systems and expertise necessary to manage high volumes of mortgage sales to the Enterprises; and (iii) reputational risk—the report cites as an example an institution that was sanctioned by state regulators for engaging in allegedly abusive lending practices. The report notes that in 2014 the FHFA’s Division of Enterprise Regulation’s plans to focus on Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s controls for smaller and nonbank sellers, which will include assessments of the Enterprise’s mortgage loan delivery limits and lender eligibility standards and assessment of the counterparty approval process and counterparty credit risk resulting from cash window originations. The report also notes FHFA guidance to the Enterprises last year on contingency planning for high-risk or high-volume counterparties, and states that the FHFA plans to issue additional guidance on counterparty risk management. Specifically, the Division of Supervision Policy and Support plans to issue an advisory bulletin focusing on risk management and the approval process for seller counterparties. The OIG did not make any recommendations to supplement the FHFA’s planned activities.

    Freddie Mac Fannie Mae Nonbank Supervision Mortgage Origination FHFA

  • Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Publish Additional Uniform Closing Dataset Documentation

    Lending

    On July 15, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced the availability of additional documentation to support the mortgage industry with the implementation of the Uniform Closing Dataset (UCD), the common industry dataset that supports the CFPB’s closing disclosure. The documents provide information to supplement the MISMO mapping document released in March 2014. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac intend to collect the UCD from lenders in the future, but have not yet determined the method or timeline for that data collection.

    CFPB Freddie Mac Fannie Mae Mortgage Origination Disclosures

  • Mortgage Company Resolves HAMP-Related Criminal Allegations

    Financial Crimes

    On July 3, the DOJ announced the resolution of a multi-agency criminal investigation into the way a large mortgage company administered the federal Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). According to a Restitution and Remediation Agreement released by the company’s parent bank, the company agreed to pay up to $320 million to resolve allegations that it made misrepresentations and omissions about (i) how long it would take to make HAMP qualification decisions; (ii) the duration of HAMP trial periods; and (iii) how borrowers would be treated during those trial periods. In exchange for the monetary payments and other corrective actions by the company, the government agreed not to prosecute the company for crimes related to the alleged conduct. The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, as well as the FHFA Inspector General—which has authority to oversee Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s HAMP programs—and the Special Inspector General for TARP—which has responsibility for the Treasury Department HAMP program and jurisdiction over financial institutions that received TARP funds. This criminal action comes in the wake of a DOJ Inspector General report that was critical of the Justice Department’s mortgage fraud enforcement efforts, and which numerous members of Congress used to push DOJ to more vigorously pursue alleged mortgage-related violations. In announcing the action, the U.S. Attorney acknowledged that other HAMP-related investigations are under way, and that more cases may be coming.

    Freddie Mac Fannie Mae FHFA DOJ Enforcement HAMP TARP Financial Crimes

  • S.D.N.Y. U.S. Attorney Obtains FHA, GSE False Claims Settlement

    Lending

    On July 1, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced that a large bank agreed to pay $10 million to resolve allegations that prior to 2011 it violated the False Claims Act and FIRREA by failing to oversee the reasonableness of foreclosure-related charges it submitted to the FHA and Fannie Mae for reimbursement, contrary to program requirements and the bank’s certifications that it had done so. The government intervened in a whistleblower suit claiming that, notwithstanding FHA program requirements and the bank’s annual FHA certifications, prior to 2011, the bank failed to create or maintain an adequate FHA quality control program to review the fees and charges submitted by outside counsel and other third-party providers to the bank, which the bank then submitted to FHA for reimbursement. The government also claimed that the bank failed to create or maintain Fannie Mae audit and control systems sufficient to ensure that the fees and expenses submitted by outside counsel and other third-party providers to the bank, which the bank then submitted to Fannie Mae for reimbursement, were reasonable, customary, or necessary. In addition to the monetary settlement, the bank was required to admit to the allegations and agreed to remain compliant with all rules applicable to servicers of mortgage loans insured by FHA and to servicers of loans held or securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

    Fannie Mae HUD FHFA DOJ Enforcement FHA False Claims Act / FIRREA

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