Law and regulation

The chief financial officer of a collection agency in Kalispell, Mont. was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for tax evasion and ordered to pay $159,000 in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Goldman Sachs shareholders will decide next month whether to reelect board member James A. Johnson, a former CEO of Fannie Mae, who is facing vocal opposition from a large mutual fund investor.

Is it fair to give a 30% haircut to borrowers who put zero down, and not to their neighbors who put 30% down? Or to distribute taxpayer funds to five states with half the country's negative equity?

Zions Bancorporation's (ZION) repayment of half of its funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program tamped down earnings in the first quarter, but its core results still handily beat expectations.

In inaugural meeting for directors Hoenig and Norton, agency's staff outlined further reductions in projected losses from bank failures.

The executives of United Western Bank filed a motion for summary judgment that also spares no criticism of how the OTS handled the Denver thrift's failure in early 2011. The motion claims that the now-defunct regulator closed the thrift despite evidence that management had just raised $200 million in life-saving capital.

You've heard the philosophical question: If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

For differing reasons, parties in at least two cases are seeking appeals courts to weigh in on so-called "business judgment" rules, which would have a significant effect on FDIC lawsuits against bankers at failed institutions.

In a win for the banking industry, Sen. Charles Schumer says that the business lending measure is not likely to be considered until at least the second half of the year, dimming its chances of enactment.

A quick read of a recent New York Times story could suggest a tidal move back into subprime lending. But a closer look reveals a major exception: before the crisis, consumers with weak credit were warmly invited to borrow on unsecured bank credit cards. No more.

With the CFPB looking broadly at third-party relationships, lenders need to know the qualifications of anyone handling an account for them. Giving carte blanche to middlemen to hire car repossession agents may no longer be an option.

Federal regulators ended a three-week hiatus by shuttering a small New Jersey thrift on Friday.

Raj Date, the deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said Friday that the agency wants to avoid creating "disincentives" for mortgage lenders and banks as part of the qualified mortgage rule.

Annual meetings held by Citi and Bank of New York Mellon have been shaken by investor dissent over executive pay, and observers anticipate more rebukes in the coming month.

Michael Berman, the president and chief executive of CWCapital, received the Burton C. Wood Legislative Service Award at the Mortgage Bankers Association conference.

Grant Thornton has hired a former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. employee as a managing director in its national bank regulatory practice.

Did examiners get too cozy with the big banks they were charged with supervising? Reasonable people will disagree, but Peggy Twohig certainly isn't going to wade into the debate.

Randy Neugebauer and Maxine Waters don't have much in common politically. The Texas Republican has a lifetime score of 97 on the American Conservative Union's 100-point scorecard, while the California Democrat scores just 3.

A Kent, Wash., credit union joins peers from California and Michigan in opposing legislation that would allow non-profits to more than double their commercial lending.

While by law the Federal Reserve Board must worry about price stability and unemployment, Chairman Ben Bernanke appears to have charted a third mandate for the central bank: financial stability.