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Two Trade Associations File Notices of Intent to Submit Amicus Briefs in PHH v. CFPB
On March 8 and 9, two separate Notices of Intention to Participate as Amicus Curiae were filed in PHH Corp. v. CFPB. The first was filed by ACA International, a trade association for the credit and collections industry. The second was filed on behalf of the following parties: American Bankers Association; American Escrow Association; American Financial Services Association; Consumer Bankers Association; Credit Union National Association; Housing Policy Council of the Financial Services Roundtable; Independent Community Bankers of America; Leading Builders of America; Mortgage Bankers Association; National Association of Federally- Insured Credit Unions; National Association of Home Builders; National Association of REALTORS; and Real Estate Services Providers Council. Nearly all of the associations listed above filed either joint or separate amici briefs at the panel stage and believe that “the en banc Court will be aided by a brief addressing how the Bureau’s Order not only contravenes RESPA’s statutory text, governing regulations, and applicable policy statements, but also how the Order’s violation of fair-notice principles disrupts the critically important home-lending market.”
NJ Lawyer Convicted of $40.8 Million Mortgage Fraud Scheme
On March 8, a U.S. District Court Judge sentenced a New Jersey lawyer to a four year prison term for participating in a mortgage fraud scheme that tricked lenders into releasing $40.8 million based on fraudulent loan applications. The investigation, led by the District of New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office, concluded that the defendant and his co-conspirators created false documents to help “straw buyers”—“people with good credit scores but lacking the financial resources to qualify for mortgage loans”—appear more creditworthy so they could purchase properties. The defendant then falsified mortgage loan applications and supporting documents, submitted the paperwork to mortgage lenders, and laundered a portion of the loan proceeds through accounts controlled by the defendant and co-conspirators. In addition to the prison term, the defendant was sentenced to three years of supervised release, ordered to pay restitution of over $13.1 million and required to forfeit over $2.41 million of fraudulent proceeds.
White House Releases Proclamation Announcing National Consumer Protection Week
On March 9, President Trump issued Proclamation 9577 announcing March 5 through March 11 as National Consumer Protection Week 2017. The President “call[ed] upon government officials, industry leaders, and advocates to educate our citizens about the protection of personal information and identity theft through consumer education activities in communities across the country.” As previously covered in InfoBytes, several events have been planned nationally to educate and empower consumers.
NY AG Schneiderman Releases List of “Top Ten” Frauds for 2016
On March 6, 2017, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman released the state’s 2016 top ten list of consumer fraud complaints. For the past 11 years, Internet-related complaints concerning service providers, data privacy and security, and consumer fraud topped the list, closely followed by complaints about automobile sales, service, financing, and repairs. Credit complaints about debt collection, billing, debt settlement, payday loads, credit repair and reporting agencies, and identity theft were sixth. Complaints related to mortgages were ninth. Not on the top ten list but highlighted by the Attorney General’s office were complaints involving scam student debt relief companies as well as two common schemes known as the IRS scam and the Grandparent scam. Also provided were tips consumers should use to protect themselves and their families.
FSOC Releases March 2 Treasury Meeting Readout
On March 2, Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, convened an executive session meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), to receive updates on global economic and market developments and initial staff work on the Council’s 2017 annual report. The agenda also included discussions on the “ongoing annual reevaluation of [the Council’s] designation of a nonbank financial company, including the review of materials submitted by the company and engagement with the company.”
President Trump Hosts “National Economic Council” Listening Session with CEOs of Small and Community Banks
On March 9, President Trump met with 11 community bank CEOs at the White House seeking the bankers’ input on which regulations may be crimping their ability to lend to consumers and small businesses. The meeting included representatives from the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), and the American Bankers Association (ABA), as well as nine bank executives from across the country. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, National Economic Council Chairman Gary Cohn, and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus also were present.
The President started the meeting by noting that “[n]early half of all private-sector workers are employed by small businesses” and that “[c]ommunity banks are the backbone of small business in America” before announcing his commitment to “preserving our community banks.” Following the President’s brief opening remarks, the attendees had the opportunity to introduce themselves and share specific examples of how excessive regulatory burdens affect their ability to serve their customers, make loans and create jobs at the local level. Proposals, such as the ICBA’s Plan for Prosperity, also were discussed.
Following the meeting, ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols released a statement “commend[ing] President Trump for meeting with community bankers to hear the challenges they face serving their clients.” He described the meeting as “an important step” toward re-examining the “highly prescriptive rules” that have created a “regulatory environment” in which “mortgages don’t get made, small businesses don’t get created and banks find it more difficult to make the loans that drive job creation.” The ICBA also issued a post-meeting Press Release, in which their Chairman, Rebeca Romero Rainey, explained that among the items discussed at the meeting was the ICBA’s “Plan for Prosperity”—a “pro-growth platform to eliminate onerous regulatory burdens on community banks” that “includes provisions to cut regulatory red tape, improve access to capital, strengthen accountability in bank exams, incentivize credit in rural America and more.” The ICBA Chairman also confirmed that the Association “looks forward to continuing to work with President Trump, his administration and Congress to advance common-sense regulatory relief that will support communities nationwide.”
Also weighing in was House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), who issued a press release praising the President for “listening to the concerns of community bankers who have been buried under an avalanche of burdensome regulations as a result of Dodd-Frank.” Chairman Hensarling also took the opportunity to tout the Financial CHOICE Act, his bill that would make sweeping amendments to the Dodd-Frank Act. According to Chairman Hensarling, GOP members on the Financial Services Committee are “eager to work with the President and his administration this year to fulfill the pledge to dismantle Dodd-Frank and unclog the arteries of our financial system so the lifeblood of capital can flow more freely and create jobs.”
Flood Insurance Takes Center Stage on Hill this Week
On March 9, the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee held a hearing to examine the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and, according to a memo released by the Subcommittee, “provide an opportunity to review the current government flood insurance model, the technological changes since 1968 that could improve the NFIP, and how the private sector could develop a private flood insurance market that compliments the current NFIP model.” With the current NFIP program set to expire on September 30, the hearing comes as Congress is in the process of drafting a proposal to reauthorize and overhaul the program.
Roy Wright—a top FEMA official and the only witness slated to testify at the hour-long hearing—answered questions and, according to the written statement submitted prior to his appearance, discussed “a number of opportunities [that] should be explored that could provide for the growth of the private market for flood insurance.” Wright stated, among other things, that “improving the nation’s overall flood resiliency will depend on finding an appropriate balance between reducing risk to the taxpayer through a greater private sector role while sustaining a robust and affordable federal program.”
Following the hearing, the Financial Services Committee issued a press release highlighting key takeaways, including:
- “The National Flood Insurance Program is in need of significant reform. The program runs an estimated annual deficit as high as $1.5 billion and already is $24.6 billion in the red to taxpayers, with no foreseeable way to ever repay them.”
- “Instead of reducing taxpayer risk to deadly floods, the federal government has spent more than $200 billion on flood recoveries since 2000 in addition to the NFIP. Meanwhile, customer dissatisfaction with how the NFIP operates, approves flood maps, and pays claims has remained high and keeps on growing with each new storm.”
- “The private sector can and should play a more meaningful role in flood insurance.”
Flood Insurance Market Parity and Modernization Act. Earlier in the week, on March 8, legislation intended to accelerate development of the private flood instance market was introduced in both Houses of Congress. In the Senate, Sens. Dean Heller (R-NV) and John Tester (D-MT) reintroduced the Flood Insurance Market Parity and Modernization Act (S. 563), which has been referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Meanwhile, in the House, Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL.) and Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) announced the introduction of H.R. 1422–the House version of the Flood Insurance Market Parity and Modernization Act.
Flood Insurance Fairness Act. On March 7, Reps. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla) and Charlie Crist (D-Fla) introduced the Flood Insurance Fairness Act (H.R.1401), a bill intended to “ensure fairness in premium rates for coverage under the National Flood Insurance Program for residences and business properties.” The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Financial Services. As explained by Rep. Crist in a press release, “[b]y extending relief to more Florida properties–including rentals and businesses–we can better protect the financial well-being of middle class families across the state.” A June 2015 version of the bill was previously introduced by Rep. Curbelo during the 114th Congress.
DOJ Pilot Program Extended to Provide Adequate Time for Evaluation
Speaking at the American Bar Association’s National Institute on White Collar Crime yesterday, U.S. Department of Justice official Kenneth Blanco reportedly announced that the Justice Department’s FCPA pilot program encouraging corporate cooperation will not end on April 5 of this year as originally announced. Instead, until the Justice Department is able to render a final decision based on a complete evaluation, the program will remain in force. Notably, as previously reported, the new Deputy Assistant Attorney General with oversight over the Fraud Section, Trevor N. McFadden, co-authored an article during his time in the private sector praising the program as “a step forward in providing companies and their counsel with more transparent and predictable benefits for self-reporting, cooperating, and remediating FCPA misconduct.”
New Survey Reports on Corruption in the Asia Pacific Region
A German nonprofit that tracks global corruption and perceptions of corruption, has published People and Corruption: Asia Pacific – Global Corruption Barometer. In what the organization calls “the most extensive survey of its kind,” the group spent a year and a half interviewing over 21,000 people living in the Asia Pacific region as a litmus test for corruption in the area. The 38-page report found considerable differences in bribery rates between surveyed countries; for example, while Japan weighed in at 0.2%, a staggering 69% of people surveyed in India indicated they had paid a bribe in the past year in exchange for public services. People across the surveyed region agreed that police were the most corrupt part of public services. While Australians expressed the “most positive” outlook on corruption, people in Malaysia and Vietnam felt the least positive overall, and people in China “were most likely to think the level of corruption had increased recently.” The report outlines three key recommendations, encouraging governments to “make good on promises,” “stop[] bribery in public services,” and “encourag[e] more people to report corruption.”
New DOJ Appointee Expresses Commitment to Enforcing the FCPA
In late January of 2017, President Donald Trump appointed Trevor N. McFadden as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division, a position that includes oversight over the Fraud and Criminal Appellate Sections. The Fraud Section is in charge of enforcing the FCPA, placing the former law firm Litigation and Government Enforcement partner, who also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General, in a key role to determine the future of FCPA enforcement under the new administration. On February 16, 2017, McFadden gave a speech at the Global Investigations Review Conference in which he proclaimed his dedication to the continued enforcement of the statute. While McFadden’s comments reflect Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recent promise to enforce the FCPA, they contrast with President Trump’s 2012 comments that the FCPA is a “horrible law” that “should be changed.”
Above all, McFadden’s message was one of enforcement, enforcement, enforcement. He commented that the law “has been vigorously enforced” over its 40-year history, efforts which have “steadily increased over time.” McFadden specifically highlighted two important trends of this history of enforcement: transparency to businesses, and cooperation with foreign nations in the fight against corruption. McFadden’s emphasis on the “utmost importance” of working with other countries also signaled a continued commitment to what he called “important anti-corruption conventions,” including “the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (NCAC), the Convention on Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), and several others.”
In looking to the future of FCPA enforcement, McFadden called the law’s continued “fight against official corruption [] a solemn duty of the Justice Department…regardless of party affiliation.” He also emphasized that the Justice Department will continue to prioritize “individual accountability,” although he did comment that some people “may be unwittingly involved in facilitating an illegal payment under circumstances that do not merit criminal prosecution of the individual.” Finally, McFadden expressed that a company’s “voluntary self-disclosures, cooperation, and remedial efforts” will “continue to guide our prosecutorial discretion determinations,” along with the “penalty reductions for companies that self-disclose, cooperate, and accept responsibility for their misconduct” provided for in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. Interestingly, the only whiff of questioning past Justice Department approaches was McFadden’s mention of an upcoming review of the FCPA pilot program encouraging such company cooperation. However, plans to re-evaluate the pilot program were already in place under the Obama administration, according to an article McFadden co-wrote with colleagues at his proir law firm in April of 2016. Notably, McFadden’s article called the pilot program “a step forward in providing companies and their counsel with more transparent and predictable benefits for self-reporting, cooperating, and remediating FCPA misconduct.”