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Banking
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June 12, 2013
ResCap Urges 2nd Circ. To Block Feds' Suit
Bankrupt mortgage lender Residential Capital LLC asked the Second Circuit Wednesday to stop the Federal Housing Finance Agency from suing its affiliates, arguing the lawsuit has the potential to deplete its assets.
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June 12, 2013
State Street Wins $4.5M In 2nd Circ. Loan-Default Row
The Second Circuit on Wednesday said the developer of luxury Manhattan condo building at 200 11th Ave. must pay more than $4.5 million to lender State Street Bank & Trust Co. after defaulting on a loan, reversing a lower court decision.
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June 12, 2013
House Votes To Limit CFTC Cross-Border Swaps Oversight
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday aimed at limiting the U.S. Commodities Futures and Trading Commission’s ability to regulate cross-border swaps transactions under the Dodd-Frank Act.
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June 12, 2013
Constantine Atty Leading Fight Over Visa, MasterCard Deal
Leading the vocal opposition to the largest antitrust settlement in U.S. history is no small feat, but for Constantine Cannon LLP's Jeffrey Shinder, taking on Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc. and a $7.25 billion payout is just the latest battle in the firm's decades-long war against the payments industry.
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June 12, 2013
Swiss Tax Info Sharing Law Survives Key Vote
The upper chamber of the Swiss parliament on Wednesday reportedly approved a bill that would allow Swiss banks to turn over account information requested by U.S. authorities seeking to root out tax evaders, just a day after a parliamentary committee recommended rejecting the measure.
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June 12, 2013
House Backs Speedy Changes To Reverse Mortgage Program
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill that would allow the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to expedite changes to the federal reverse mortgage program as it continues to rack up debt from underwater homeowners.
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June 12, 2013
FirstEnergy, BNY Mellon Freed From Coal Plant Suit
FirstEnergy Corp. and the Bank of New York Mellon Corp. affiliates don't have to face allegations they cut an investor group out of the sale of a Pennsylvania coal-fired power plant because an appraisal of the plant's value was binding, a New York state judge ruled Wednesday.
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June 12, 2013
Mortgage Co. Says Reed Smith Neglected Fraud Suit Coverage
A New Jersey mortgage company driven into bankruptcy in part by a $780,000 jury verdict tied to allegations of consumer fraud has sued Reed Smith LLP and New Jersey law firm Coffey & Associates PC for allegedly failing to inform the company about its legal defense insurance coverage in the suit.
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June 12, 2013
ResCap Gets Court Approval To Pay $1.1B Ally Debt
Residential Capital LLC on Wednesday secured a New York bankruptcy judge’s approval to make an early $1.1 billion debt payment to former parent Ally Financial Inc., despite an objection from bondholder Berkshire Hathaway Inc., saying the financial benefit to the estate outweighs any potential risks.
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June 12, 2013
UK Regulators Reviewing Alleged FX Market Rigging
Financial regulators in the U.K. on Wednesday said they are reviewing allegations that traders at several big banks were involved in a scheme to rig foreign exchange benchmarks and could open a formal investigation into the reported practices.
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June 12, 2013
6th Circ. Won't Apply Class Waiver In JPMorgan Antitrust Row
The Sixth Circuit ruled Tuesday that an arbitrator, not a federal district court, should decide whether an Ohio man accusing JPMorgan Chase Bank NA of charging improper fees on automotive loans can bring putative class antitrust claims in arbitration against the bank.
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June 12, 2013
Goldman Sachs Ducks Final Claims In $580M Negligence Suit
A Massachusetts federal judge on Tuesday tossed remaining claims against Goldman Sachs Group Inc. tied to a $580 million negligence suit, saying that the financial adviser's role in Dragon Systems Inc.'s sale to Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV wasn't “egregious” enough to violate state law.
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June 12, 2013
Deals Rumor Mill: Carlyle, Marubeni, Vale
Carlyle is plotting a $4 billion property fund that would be the largest new real estate effort since the financial crisis, while Marubeni stays active on the deal-making front with an expression of interest in a $2 billion stake in a Rio Tinto coal unit.
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June 12, 2013
Polish Banking Giant PKO Puts Up $815M For Nordea Unit
Nordic banking giant Nordea Bank AB will send its Polish banking, life insurance and financing units to PKO Bank Polski SA in an $815 million deal meant to to help it reach financial targets while consolidating its business to core markets, Nordea said Wednesday.
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June 12, 2013
FHFA Can't Sue UBS Over $1.1B In Problem MBS, Judge Says
The Federal Housing Finance Agency can't make a UBS AG affiliate buy back allegedly defective loans in a $1.1 billion mortgage-backed securities pool that the Swiss bank sold to investors because only the securities' trustee has that power, a New York state judge ruled Wednesday.
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June 12, 2013
Senators Push Shelanski To Curb Oversight Costs And Delays
U.S. senators across the aisle criticized the Obama administration on Wednesday for stalling on required cost-benefit reviews of proposed agency rules while implementation costs skyrocket, urging regulatory czar nominee Howard A. Shelanski to focus his attention on quickly finalizing key rules if confirmed to the post.
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June 12, 2013
US, Canada Reach Agreement On Winding Down Big Banks
U.S. and Canadian regulators on Wednesday announced an agreement to work in concert to unwind large banks with operations in both countries that fail.
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June 11, 2013
JPMorgan Says $6B 'London Whale' Loss Suit Falls Flat
JPMorgan Chase & Co. urged a New York judge on Tuesday to toss a consolidated securities class action over its $6.2 billion “London Whale” loss, saying allegations that it misled investors about its risk management practices were an attempt to plead “fraud by hindsight.”
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June 11, 2013
BofA, Wells Fargo Get 2-Year Delay On Swaps 'Pushout Rule'
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reportedly said Tuesday that it would give seven top banks, including Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co., two additional years to comply with a Dodd-Frank requirement that they send risky swaps trading out of the bank.
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June 11, 2013
BofA Says FDIC's $283M MBS Suit Is Time-Barred
Countrywide Securities Corp. and successor Bank of America Corp. urged a California federal judge Tuesday to toss the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s $283 million lawsuit alleging they duped now-defunct Colonial Bank into buying doomed mortgage-backed securities, arguing its claims are time-barred under federal securities law.
Expert Analysis
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A Significant Impact On Private Investment Funds
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., recently reintroduced the Inclusive Prosperity Act of 2013, a financial transaction tax that, according to its supporters, would provide the federal government between $150 billion and $340 billion of revenue per year. The bill is, essentially, a sales tax on large Wall Street banks — however, its provisions seem to impact hedge funds and private equity funds, says David Sussman of Duane Morris LLP.
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Clear Business Logic Can Foil Parallel Conduct Claims
For practitioners defending conspiracy claims, the Second Circuit's recent decision in Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Citigroup Inc. may provide the basis to argue that conduct solidly grounded by legitimate business interests should be sufficient to fend off allegations of collusion, says Bruce Colbath of Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP.
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Forensic Analytics Can Find Needles In Multiple Haystacks
Forensic analytics is indispensable to any situation involving voluminous transactions or other large amounts of data. Yet, too few attorneys or organizations use, or maximize, forensic analytics to its fullest benefit. The recently publicized European soccer match-fixing scandal provides a handy illustration, say Jonny Frank and Alex Lefferts of StoneTurn Group LLP.
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New Directions For SEC's Insider Trading Program
What is striking about SEC v. Moore — an insider trading case against a Canadian investment banker who allegedly traded on nonpublic information that he "pieced together" — is that the facts allegedly observed by Moore, when viewed independently, are all seemingly immaterial. The mosaic theory, if not dead, may very well be on life support, say attorneys with Allen & Overy LLP.
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A Financial Institution’s Fraud On Itself Triggers FIRREA
The decision in United States v. Bank of New York Mellon not only expands the ability of the U.S. Department of Justice to aggressively use the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act to target alleged financial fraud, but also will likely impact other pending cases, including two in the Southern District of New York that raise the same issue, say Matthew Previn and Michelle Rogers of BuckleySandler LLP.
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An Outline Of SEC's Bold Enforcement Plan
Recent statements by newly confirmed U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chairwoman Mary Jo White and other SEC officials suggest a strong enforcement effort in the coming years — and the Obama administration’s budget proposal for FY 2014 indicates that the commission likely will have the resources it needs to support this effort, say attorneys with Arnold & Porter LLP.
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SAFETY Act: A Cybersecurity Win-Win For Gov't, Industry
By taking advantage of the Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act, private industry can help protect the country from cyberattack while lowering insurance costs and mitigating liability risks, say Dismas Locaria and Andrew Bigart of Venable LLP.
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9th Circ. Leaves Broughton-Cruz Hanging
The Ninth Circuit decision in Kilgore v. KeyBank NA leaves open the question of whether and to what extent California's Broughton-Cruz rule survives the U.S. Supreme Court decision in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion. It also suggests additional guidance to maximize enforcement of arbitration agreements and class action waivers, say attorneys with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP.
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China Is Cracking Down On Abuse Of Prepaid Cards
In China, prepaid cards have provided considerable convenience to the public and may even have stimulated consumption, but they also give rise to the risk of corruption and bribery. The Chinese government has recently reinvigorated its efforts to regulate the issuance and circulation of such commercial prepaid cards, say attorneys with Debevoise & Plimpton LLP.
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Spotlight On Brazil: Courting International Investors
Alongside legal reform and a consolidation of institutions, self-regulatory initiatives have promoted a real improvement in corporate governance practices in Brazil. Such factors have also led to the creation of a more diffuse control of capital in Brazilian companies and the increased participation of active minority investors demanding professional, independent and transparent management bodies, says Silvia Fazio of Chadbourne & Parke LLP.