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DOJ Secures Jury Verdict In First GSE Civil Fraud Suit
On October 23, a jury found a bank liable on one civil mortgage fraud charge arising out of a program operated by a lender the bank had acquired. The jury also found against a former executive of the acquired lender. The verdict followed a four week trial in the first DOJ case alleging violations of the FCA and FIRREA in connection with loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York will consider briefing on the penalty—the DOJ originally had sought damages close to $1 billion. The bank stated that it will evaluate its options for an appeal. For more information about the government’s expanding FCA/FIRREA civil fraud initiative, please visit our resource center.
Second Circuit Revives Terrorism Victims' Suit Against Foreign Bank
On October 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated and remanded a district court’s judgment and held that subjecting a foreign bank to personal jurisdiction in New York was within the reach of New York’s long-arm statute and comported with due process protections provided under the U.S. Constitution. Licci v. Lebanese Canadian Bank SAL, No. 10-1306, 2013 WL 5700963 (2d Cir. Oct. 18, 2013). The complaint, brought by individuals who were harmed by rocket attacks in Israel carried out by the terrorist group Hezbollah, alleges that the foreign bank used its correspondent bank account in New York to wire millions of dollars to Hezbollah, knowing that the money would enable the group to carry out terrorist attacks. The New York Court of Appeals had accepted the Second Circuit’s certification question concerning the scope of New York’s long-arm statute and explained that a foreign bank’s use of a New York correspondent account to execute dozens of wire transfers is sufficiently purposeful conduct to constitute a “transaction of business” under the state’s long-arm statute. After resolving the question of personal jurisdiction under state law, the Second Circuit also held that subjecting the defendant bank to personal jurisdiction did not violate due process under the Constitution, finding that the alleged conduct—the deliberate and “repeated use of New York’s banking system” for the purpose of “repeated, intentional execution of U.S.‐dollar‐denominated wire transfers”—satisfied the minimum contacts test established by the Supreme Court in International Shoe. The court further noted that the bank should have foreseen that “it might be subject to the burden of a lawsuit” in that same forum for wrongs related to, and arising from, that use. The Second Circuit specifically noted that a foreign defendant’s “mere maintenance” of a correspondent account in the U.S. is not by itself sufficient to support the constitutional exercise of personal jurisdiction over the account-holder.
Second Circuit Remands Dispute Over Arbitration Of Bank Rewards Program Claims
On October 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned a district court’s denial of a motion to compel arbitration in a dispute over a deposit account rewards program and instructed the district court on how to assess whether the claims should be arbitrated. Hirsch v. Citibank, N.A., No. 13-1172, 2013 WL 5716397 (2nd Cir. Oct. 22, 2013). In this case, two individuals filed suit on behalf of a putative class of similarly situated bank customers, alleging that the bank attracted customers with promises of frequent flier miles rewards but failed to disclose that customers would be required to report part of the rewards to the IRS as income. The district court denied the bank’s motion to compel arbitration, holding that the agreement to arbitrate was not binding on the parties as the signature cards signed by the customers upon opening deposit accounts failed sufficiently to reference a document containing an arbitration provision. On appeal, the bank argued that the district court should not have relied solely on the incorporation by reference doctrine and that the court ignored the bank’s policy of providing at account opening a deposit account client manual including an arbitration provision. The Second Circuit found that the district court failed to conduct a complete analysis of incorporation by reference, and held that the district court must conduct a factual inquiry into whether the bank actually provided the client manual. The Second Circuit held that on remand the bank must sufficiently demonstrate that it had in place a corporate policy requiring provision of the client manual. Further, the court held that, because the client manual does not on its face state that it is an agreement governing the account, the bank must show that new customers are informed that the client manual governs the account and that it contains an arbitration clause.
California Supreme Court Clarifies Application Of Supreme Court Arbitration Holdings on State Law
On October 17, the Supreme Court of California held that, while the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) preempts a California state-law rule categorically prohibiting waiver of state pre-arbitration protections in arbitration agreements, state courts may “continue to enforce unconscionability rules that do not ‘interfere[] with fundamental attributes of arbitration’” when determining whether an arbitration agreement is enforceable. Sonic-Calabasas A v. Moreno, No. S174475, 2013 WL 5645378 (Cal. Oct. 17, 2013) (citing AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 131 S.Ct. 1740 (2011)). In light of the Supreme Court’s rulings in Concepcion and American Express v. Italian Colors, the Supreme Court of California reversed its previous ruling in Sonic-Calabasas A, Inc. v. Moreno, 51 Cal.4th 659 (2011) (Sonic I) with regard to the impact of the FAA on the waiver of state pre-arbitration proceedings and remanded the case to the trial court to determine whether the arbitration agreement in question was unconscionable on other grounds. In response to claims that the state pre-arbitration proceedings present no obstacle to accomplishing the objectives of arbitration, the court explained that the FAA does not “permit[] additional delay…from an administrative scheme [designed] to effectuate state policies unrelated to the agreement’s enforceability,” and that “[w]here a state-law rule interferes with fundamental attributes of arbitration, the FAA preempts the state-law rule.” However, while abrogating the categorical rule from Sonic I, the court held that “when faced with an unconscionability claim arising from an adhesive employment contract requiring the waiver of [the state’s pre-arbitration protections] in their entirety, [courts] must still determine whether the overall bargain was unreasonably one-sided.”
S.D.N.Y. Dismisses Putative TILA Class Action Based on Credit Card Billing Practices
On October 18, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed a putative TILA class action alleging that a bank made improper interest rate disclosures on credit card bills and assessed incorrect late fees and interest. Schwartz v. HSBC Bank USA, N.A., No. 13-cv-00769, 2013 WL 5677059 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 18, 2013). The card holder asserted that despite his timely payments the bank assessed him late fees and incorrectly disclosed the annual interest rate and balances on his monthly statements. The court first rejected the card holder’s disclosure claim, characterizing the alleged violations as “hypertechnical” disclosure defects that did not provide a basis for plaintiff to recover. The court held that, while the applicable TILA rule mandates the disclosure of the applicable rate, the balance to which the rate applied, and the nominal APR, the card holder did not properly allege how his statements lacked or misstated any of these required disclosures. The court also held that dismissal was warranted because the bank had refunded the alleged improper late fees before plaintiff commenced the lawsuit, and therefore plaintiff sustained no actual damages.
EU Parliament Committee Approves Data Protection Overhaul
On October 21, the EU Parliament civil liberties committee voted overwhelmingly to adopt amendments to EU data protection rules and to require stiffer fines for non-compliance. The rules are designed to increase individual control over personal data while at the same time making it easier for companies to move across Europe, the committee explained. Under the adopted amendments, if a third country requests a company (e.g., a search engine, social network, or cloud provider) to disclose personal information processed in the EU, the firm would have to seek authorization from the national data protection authority before transferring any data and would have to inform the individual of the request. The amendments would grant any person the right to have their personal data erased if he/she requests it. It also would require that, where processing of personal information is based on consent, an organization or company could process the information only after obtaining clear permission from the data subject, who could withdraw his/her consent at any time. Finally, the amendments would increase the cap for penalties for violations to $136.7 million or up to 5 percent of the violating company’s annual worldwide turnover, whichever is greater. The committee directed the EU Parliament to start negotiations with national governments in the European Council, which would be followed by inter-institutional talks. According to the committee release, Parliament aims to reach an agreement on this major legislative reform before the May 2014 European elections. The 91 amendments are available in two parts, here and here.
CFPB Director Discusses Mortgage Rule Implementation And Enforcement Against Individuals
On October 23, CFPB Director Richard Cordray briefly spoke with the Reuters Washington Summit about the Bureau’s rulemaking and enforcement work.
Upcoming Effective Dates for Mortgage Rules
According to the report, Cordray stated that he was confident most mortgage lenders would be able to comply with the new mortgage rules by the January 2014 effective dates. "Everybody's had plenty of time to see this coming," Cordray said. However, he added that the Bureau would take into consideration that some smaller firms would need more time to fully comply. "What we're looking for come January 10 is that they've made good-faith efforts to come into substantial compliance with the rules," he said.
Enforcement Actions Against Individuals
Corday also stated that the Bureau would continue to take enforcement action against individual officers and employees, as well as banks and other entities. "I've always felt strongly that you can't only go after companies. Companies run through individuals, and individuals need to know that they're at risk when they do bad things under the umbrella of a company," Cordray said.
The CFPB already has pursued individuals in several civil litigation matters. For example, the CFPB has named individuals in actions to enforce Section 8 of RESPA, including a lawsuit announced just this week against principals of a law firm. In July, the CFPB announced an enforcement action against a Utah-based mortgage company and two of its officers for giving bonuses to loan officers who allegedly steered consumers into mortgages with higher interest rates.
CFPB Sues Law Firm Over Alleged RESPA Violations
On October 24, the CFPB announced the filing of a lawsuit against a Kentucky law firm and its principals for allegedly violating Section 8 of RESPA by operating a network of affiliated companies in order to pay “kickbacks” for referrals of mortgage settlement business. The CFPB claims, among other things, that from 2006 until 2011 the law firm established nine joint ventures (JVs) with owners and managers of real estate and mortgage brokerage companies. According to the CFPB, when a JV partner or an agent or employee of the JV made an initial referral of closing or other settlement services to the law firm, the law firm arranged for the title insurance for the underlying transaction to be issued through the co-owned JV in exchange for the settlement business. The parties subsequently split profits generated by the JVs as a result of the title insurance referrals, the CFPB alleges. The CFPB is seeking to enjoin the defendants from the alleged activity, and disgorgement of all income, revenue, proceeds, or profits received in connection with settlement services provided as a result of or in connection with a referral made in violation of RESPA.
The CFPB supports its claims in part by referencing certain factors first established in a HUD policy statement for use in determining whether a controlled business arrangement is a “sham.” For example, the CFPB alleges that (i) in most instances, the initial capitalization for the JV was provided by the law firm and comprised of only enough funds to cover the JV’s Errors and Omissions insurance, (ii) each JV had only one staffer—a single independent contractor simultaneously shared by all nine JVs and concurrently employed by the law firm, (iii) the law firm principals and employees or agents of the law firm managed the business affairs of the JVs, (iv) the JVs did not have their own office spaces, email addresses, or phone numbers and could not function independently from the law firm, (v) the JVs did not advertise themselves to the public, and (vi) all of the JV’s business was referred by the law firm. However, the CFPB never characterizes the business arrangements in this case as a “sham” and does not explicitly cite HUD’s policy statement.
This is at least the sixth RESPA action publicly announced by the CFPB and the second involving allegedly improper affiliated business arrangements. As with the other RESPA actions it has announced to date, the investigation that led to the current lawsuit originated with HUD and transferred to the CFPB when authority for RESPA transferred in July 2011. The CFPB appears to be exercising for the first time in a RESPA case its independent civil litigating authority to pursue the allegations, whereas HUD lacked such litigating authority and typically would have resolved the investigation through a negotiated settlement or a referral to the DOJ for litigation. The announcements, combined with the prior actions, suggests that the Bureau remains focused on enforcing Section 8 of RESPA—including through litigation—even as it focuses substantial attention on implementing extensive revisions to RESPA and other mortgage rules.
Special Alert: Agencies Issue Joint Statement On Fair Lending Compliance And The CFPB's ATR/QM Rule
On October 22, the CFPB, the OCC, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve Board, and the NCUA (collectively, the Agencies) issued a joint statement (Interagency Statement) in response to inquiries from creditors concerning their liability under the disparate impact doctrine of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) and its implementing regulation, Regulation B by originating only “qualified mortgages.” Qualified mortgages are defined under the CFPB’s January 2013 Ability-to-Repay/Qualified Mortgage Rule (ATR/QM Rule). The DOJ and HUD did not participate in the Interagency Statement.
The Interagency Statement describes some general principles that will guide the Agencies’ supervisory and enforcement activities with respect to entities within their jurisdiction as the ATR/QM Rule takes effect in January 2014. The Interagency Statement does not state that a creditor’s choice to limit its offerings to qualified mortgage loans or qualified mortgage “safe harbor” loans would comply with ECOA; rather, the Agencies state that they “do not anticipate that a creditor’s decision to offer only qualified mortgages would, absent other factors, elevate a supervised institution’s fair lending risk.” Furthermore, the Interagency Statement will not necessarily preclude civil actions.
The Agencies acknowledge that although there are several ways to satisfy the ATR/QM Rule, some creditors may be inclined to originate all or predominantly qualified mortgages, particularly when the ATR/QM Rule first becomes effective. In selecting business models and product offerings, the Agencies “expect that creditors would consider and balance demonstrable factors that may include credit risk, secondary market opportunities, capital requirements, and liability risk.” The Agencies further understand that creditors may have a “legitimate business need” to fine-tune their product offerings over the next few years in response to the impact of the ATR/QM Rule, just as they have in response to other significant regulatory changes that have occurred in the past.
The Agencies advise creditors to continue to evaluate fair lending risk as they would for other types of product selections, including by carefully monitoring their policies and practices and implementing effective compliance management systems. Nonetheless, the Agencies state that individual cases will be evaluated on their own merits.
The Agencies state that they “believe that the same principles…apply in supervising institutions for compliance with the Fair Housing Act.” However, because neither DOJ nor HUD participated in issuing the Interagency Statement, it remains to be seen how those agencies would view this issue.
It is noteworthy that the standard articulated in the Interagency Statement (“legitimate business needs”) differs from HUD’s disparate impact rule relating to the Fair Housing Act. In its rule, HUD codified a three-step burden-shifting approach to determine liability under a disparate impact claim. Once a practice has been shown by the plaintiff to have a disparate impact on a protected class, the rule states that the defendant would have the burden of showing that the challenged practice “is necessary to achieve one or more substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interests of the respondent…or defendant…A legally sufficient justification must be supported by evidence and may not be hypothetical or speculative.” (Emphasis added.)
Questions regarding the matters discussed in this Alert may be directed to any of our lawyers listed below, or to any other BuckleySandler attorney with whom you have consulted in the past.
- Jeffrey P. Naimon, (202) 349-8030
CFPB Releases Money Transfer Exam Procedures, Launches New e-Regulations Tool
On October 22, the CFPB released the procedures its examiners will use in assessing financial institutions’ compliance with the remittance transfer requirements of Regulation E. Amendments to those regulations, finalized by the CFPB earlier this year, are set to take effect October 28, 2013. In general, the rule requires remittance transfer providers that offer remittances as part of their “normal course of business” to: (i) provide written pre-payment disclosures of the exchange rates and fees associated with a transfer of funds as well as the amount of funds the recipient will receive; and (ii) investigate consumer disputes and remedy errors. The rule does not apply to financial institutions that consistently provide 100 or fewer remittance transfers each year, or to transactions under $15.
The new examination procedures detail the specific objectives examiners should pursue as part of the examination, including to: (i) assess the quality of the regulated entity’s compliance risk management systems with respect to its remittance transfer business; (ii) identify acts or practices relating to remittance transfers that materially increase the risk of violations of federal consumer financial law and associated harm to consumers; (iii) gather facts that help to determine whether a supervised entity engages in acts or practices that are likely to violate federal consumer financial law; and (iv) determine whether a violation of a federal consumer financial law has occurred and, if so, whether further supervisory or enforcement actions are appropriate. In doing so, CFPB examiners will look not only at potential risks related to the remittance regulations, but also outside the remittance rule to assess “other risks to consumers,” including potential unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act privacy violations. Finally, consistent with other examination procedures published by the CFPB, the examiners are instructed to conduct both a management- and policy-level review as well as a transaction-level review to inform the stated examination objectives.
Also on October 22, the CFPB announced a new tool designed to make it easier for the public to navigate the regulations subject to CFPB oversight. To start, the new eRegulations tool includes only Regulation E, which implements the Electronic Fund Transfer Act and includes the remittance requirements discussed above. Noting that federal regulations can be difficult to navigate, the CFPB redesigned the electronic presentation of its regulations, including by (i) defining key terms throughout, (ii) providing official interpretations throughout, (iii) linking certain sections of the “Federal Register preambles” to help explain the background of a particular paragraph, and (iv) providing the ability to see previous, current, and future versions. The CFPB notes that the tool is a work in progress and that suggestions from the public are welcome. Further, the CFPB encourages other agencies, developers, or groups to use and adapt the system.