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  • Federal Reserve Board issues flood insurance enforcement action against New York bank

    Federal Issues

    On August 28, the Federal Reserve Board (Board) announced an enforcement action against a New York state bank for allegedly violating the National Flood Insurance Act (NFIA). The consent order assesses a $16,000 penalty against the bank, but does not specify the number or nature of the alleged violations.  The maximum civil money penalty under that NFIA is $2,000 per violation. 

    Federal Issues Federal Reserve Enforcement Flood Insurance National Flood Insurance Act

  • Court finds no ECOA violation with credit union’s dispute-free credit report requirement

    Courts

    On August 28, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin dismissed an action against a credit union, holding that the credit union’s decision to consider only dispute-free credit reports of all applicants does not amount to a “prohibited basis” under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). According to the opinion, the credit union required the consumer to remove his disputed debts from his credit report in order for his application for a home equity loan to move forward. After the disputes were removed, the consumer’s credit score dropped below the minimum required by the credit union, and his application was denied. In December 2017, the consumer brought an action against the credit union, alleging that he was discriminated against in violation of ECOA for exercising his dispute rights under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The court rejected the consumer’s arguments, concluding that the FDCPA and the FCRA do not give a consumer a right to dispute debts, but rather a right to ensure that disputed debts are accurately reported as such. The court also rejected the consumer’s theory of recovery under ECOA, finding that his arguments were inconsistent with ECOA’s implementing regulation, Regulation B. The court determined that Regulation B allows a creditor to restrict the types of credit history that it will consider if the restrictions are applied to all applicants without regard to a prohibited basis. Because the dispute-free restriction was applied to all applicants of the credit union equally, the consumer’s claim failed.

    Courts ECOA FCRA FDCPA Regulation B Consumer Finance

  • OCC updates Comptroller’s Handbook, issues guidance on “other real estate owned”

    Agency Rule-Making & Guidance

    On August 31, the OCC issued Bulletin 2018-26, which updates the “Other Real Estate Owned” booklet of the Comptroller’s Handbook and provides guidance for examiners on the acquisition, reporting, management, and disposition of other real estate owned (OREO) held by supervised banks and federal savings associations. The OCC commented that while the booklet’s focus is on foreclosed real property, the guidance may also “apply to other types of foreclosed (repossessed) property, such as consumer and commercial goods, financial instruments, and intangible assets.” Foreclosed assets for reporting purposes include “loans where a bank has received physical possession of a borrower’s assets, regardless of whether formal proceedings take place.” Additional updates include (i) accounting changes for OREO sales by public and non-public business entities; (ii) interim guidance for federal savings associations on the OREO holding period; and (iii) clarifications concerning supervisory guidance and risk management practices, including third-party risk management guidance issued since the booklet was last published in 2013.

    Agency Rule-Making & Guidance OCC Comptroller's Handbook Examination

  • Agencies extend comment deadline for Volcker Rule revisions

    Agency Rule-Making & Guidance

    On September 4, the OCC, Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, SEC, and CFTC (the Agencies) announced a 30-day extension to the public comment period for the Agencies’ joint revisions to the Volcker Rule. The comment period, which was previously scheduled to end on September 17, is now extended until October 17. The joint release notes that the extension will give interested parties “approximately four and a half months from the date the proposal was released to the public to submit comments,” as the Agencies’ first released the text of the proposal on May 30 (it was not published in the Federal Register until July 17). As previously covered by InfoBytes, the Agencies’ joint revisions are designed to simplify and tailor obligations for compliance with Section 13 of the Bank Holding Company Act, known as the Volcker Rule, which restricts a bank’s ability to engage in proprietary trading and own certain funds. Specifically, according to a Federal Reserve Board memo, the proposed amendments will better align Volcker rule requirements with a bank’s level of trading activity and risks.

    Agency Rule-Making & Guidance FDIC Federal Reserve OCC CFTC SEC Bank Holding Company Act Volcker Rule

  • FDIC releases July enforcement actions

    Federal Issues

    On August 31, the FDIC announced a list of administrative enforcement actions taken against banks and individuals in July. The 15 orders include “three Section 19 orders; four removal and prohibition orders; one civil money penalty; three terminations of consent orders; and four adjudicated decisions.” The FDIC assessed a $10,800 civil money penalty against a New Mexico-based bank for alleged violations of the Flood Disaster Protection Act in connection with alleged failures to (i) obtain flood insurance coverage on loans at or before origination or renewal; (ii) maintain flood insurance; (iii) notify borrowers that they were required to obtain flood insurance; and (iv) obtain flood insurance on a borrower’s behalf when the borrower did not obtain insurance within 45 days after receiving such notification. There are no administrative hearings scheduled for September 2018. The FDIC database containing all 15 enforcement decisions and orders may be accessed here.

    Federal Issues FDIC Enforcement Civil Money Penalties Flood Disaster Protection Act Flood Insurance

  • 2nd Circuit rules that FCPA does not reach foreign individuals without their own ties to U.S.

    Financial Crimes

    On August 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the government’s argument for a broad interpretation of personal jurisdiction in FCPA cases, ruling that a non-resident foreign national lacking sufficient ties to a U.S. entity cannot be charged with conspiracy to violate the FCPA or with aiding and abetting an FCPA violation. The three-judge panel upheld the lower court’s finding that a British national and former French multinational rail transportation company executive (defendant-appellee), could not be charged with conspiring or aiding and abetting something he could not be directly charged with because he was “not an agent, employee, officer, director or shareholder of an American issuer or domestic concern” within the scope of the FCPA’s jurisdictional provision and had not himself taken actions inside the U.S. 

    The defendant-appellee was an employee of the French company’s UK subsidiary and worked for a French subsidiary. The government alleged that he was “one of the people responsible for approving the selection of, and authorizing payments to,” consultants used by the French company’s U.S. subsidiary to bribe Indonesian officials related to a power contract. The government alleged numerous U.S. acts in furtherance of the bribery (including e-mails and calls by the defendant-appellee to the U.S.), although the defendant-appellee himself never traveled to the U.S. during the scheme. The defendant-appellee was one of four executives charged in 2013 in connection with the bribes; the other three executives—all of whom worked for the U.S.-based subsidiary—a power generation equipment manufacturer (which entered into a deferred prosecution agreement)—entered guilty pleas. The company pleaded guilty in December 2014 and paid a fine of $772 million.

    The charges against the defendant-appellee included a FCPA conspiracy count as well as substantive FCPA bribery violations and related money laundering charges. The District Court granted the defendant-appellee’s motion to dismiss part of the conspiracy count, ruling that if he was not alleged in that count to be a covered person under the FCPA, then the government could not impose accomplice liability either. Similarly, where the government had not alleged that the defendant-appellee ever traveled to the U.S. during the bribery scheme, then he could not be accused of conspiring to violate the provision proscribing acts by foreign nationals taken within the U.S. The District Court allowed the count to move forward where it separately alleged that the defendant-appellee was also an agent of the U.S. subsidiary, which would bring him within the FCPA’s defined reach.

    The 2nd Circuit agreed with the District Court that if the defendant-appellee was not an agent of the French company’s U.S. subsidiary (something the court assumed for the purpose of the appeal only), and therefore himself covered under the FCPA, then he could not be charged with conspiracy or complicity liability. The court relied primarily on the idea that Congress enacted an “affirmative legislative policy” in the FCPA that was intended to punish some categories of defendants, taking into account considerations of extraterritoriality, while intentionally omitting others. Secondarily, the court also held that there was no “‘clearly expressed congressional intent to’ allow conspiracy and complicity liability to broaden the extraterritorial reach of the statute.” The court summed up its ruling as requiring that the government demonstrate that the defendant-appellee “falls within [a category enumerated in the FCPA] or acted illegally on American soil.”

    The court did reverse the District Court’s second ruling that unless the defendant-appellee traveled to the U.S. during the bribery scheme, he could not be charged with conspiring to violate the FCPA provision covering acts by foreign nationals within the U.S. The government had indicated that it still intended, at trial on the other counts, to prove that he was an agent of the U.S. subsidiary, thereby bringing him back within the categories explicitly covered by the FCPA. (The substantive FCPA counts remaining did allege that the defendant-appellee was acting as an agent).

    See previous FCPA Scorecard coverage here, here, and here.

    Financial Crimes DOJ International Bribery FCPA

  • CFPB issues HMDA interpretive rule to implement EGRRCPA amendments

    Agency Rule-Making & Guidance

    On August 31, the CFPB issued an interpretive and procedural rule to implement and clarify the HMDA amendments included in Section 104(a) of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (the Act) (previously Senate bill S. 2155). Section 104(a) of the Act amends section 304(i) of HMDA by adding partial exemptions from some of HMDA’s reporting requirements for certain insured depository institutions and insured credit unions. Specifically, banks and credit unions that originate fewer than 500 open-end lines of credit in each of the two preceding calendar years and/or 500 closed-end mortgages in each of the two preceding calendar years are exempt from HMDA’s expanded data disclosures. The exemption does not apply to nonbanks and does not exempt institutions from HMDA reporting altogether. Notwithstanding the new partial exemptions, the insured institution must comply with HMDA’s expanded data disclosures if it received a rating of “needs to improve record of meeting community credit needs” during each of its two most recent CRA examinations or a rating of “substantial noncompliance in meeting community credit needs” on its most recent CRA examination. These partial exemptions to HMDA took effect when the Act became law on May 24, 2018.

    In response to industry questions on the application of the exemptions, the Bureau released an interpretive and procedural rule. The following are key highlights of the rule:

    • Institutions exempt from certain reporting requirements may still report exempt data fields so long as they “report all data fields within any exempt data point for which they report data.” For example, if a partially exempt institution reports a data field that is part of the property address, the institution must report all other data fields that are part of the property address (e.g., city, state, zip code). The Bureau notes that institution may be particularly inclined to report exempt data fields with their 2019 submissions, as 2018 data collection was already in process when the Act took effect;
    • To count towards the 500 loan or line of credit threshold, loans and lines of credit must be otherwise HMDA-reportable loans;
    • The partial exemption applies to new data points that were implemented by the Bureau’s 2015 HMDA Final Rule, but institutions covered by the partial exemption are still required to report the 22 data points previously established by the Federal Reserve Board;
    • The rule provides requirements for a non-universal loan identifier for any partially exempt loan or application; and
    • The CRA ratings used to determine whether the CRA reporting exception applies are the two most recent CRA ratings as of December 31 of the preceding calendar year.

    The Bureau notes that it intends to initiate a notice-and-comment rulemaking to incorporate these interpretations and procedures into Regulation C at a later date.

    Additionally, the Bureau also released updates to the Filing Instructions Guide (FIG) for HMDA data collected in 2018 to incorporate the Act as implemented and clarified by the interpretive rule.

    Agency Rule-Making & Guidance CFPB HMDA S. 2155 Mortgages EGRRCPA

  • SEC issues administrative order against U.S.-based global investment management firm

    Financial Crimes

    On August 27, the SEC issued an administrative order settling allegations against a U.S.-based investment management firm, which remained outstanding after the company’s June 4 NPA with the DOJ. The June 4 NPA resolved claims of FCPA violations in Libya and included a criminal penalty of $32.6 million and disgorgement of $31.6 million (see prior FCPA Scorecard coverage here). The SEC order stated that the company’s actions were in violation of the internal accounting controls provision of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The SEC settlement did not include a separate penalty beyond the disgorgement already agreed to in June, and pre-judgment interest. 

    Financial Crimes FCPA DOJ Disgorgement SEC

  • Barbadian insurance company receives first declination with disgorgement under FCPA corporate enforcement policy

    Financial Crimes

    On August 23, a Barbadian insurance company received the first declination with disgorgement from the DOJ under the FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy, which was made effective in November 2017. The conduct at issue involved payments made by the company to a Barbadian official in exchange for insurance contracts. The DOJ stated that the official, who is a U.S. legal permanent resident, laundered the payments through a New York-based company owned by a friend of the official. The declination was offered in consideration of numerous factors, including the company’s timely and voluntary disclosure of the conduct, its thorough internal investigation and cooperation with the DOJ’s investigation, its agreement to disgorge $93,900 in profits, and its efforts to enhance compliance and to remediate the matter by terminating all involved in the misconduct.

    Financial Crimes DOJ Bribery FCPA Disgorgement

  • Global technology company confirms U.S. investigations into Hungarian sales operations

    Financial Crimes

    On August 23, the Wall Street Journal reported that a global technology company is under investigation by the DOJ and the SEC regarding whether bribes and kickbacks were paid to Hungarian officials connected to sales of the company’s products in Hungary. The company stated in response to the reporting that it had terminated four employees as well as certain business partnerships in response to its own internal probe into potential wrongdoing in the 2013 to 2014 timeframe. In SEC filings over the last couple of years, the company previously disclosed FCPA-related investigations and that it has been cooperating with related U.S. investigations, which have to date yielded no enforcement actions.

    Financial Crimes FCPA SEC DOJ

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