Law and regulation

The Fancy, an online shop with items culled by customers, raised $53 million from investors including American Express Co., billionaire Len Blavatnik and actor Will Smith, people familiar with the matter said.

A former debt collector was found guilty last week of three counts of aggravated identity theft, three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiring to defraud the United States by filing fraudulent federal income tax returns, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

A Texas-based debt settlement company last week was accused of multiple violations of Oregon's Unlawful Trade Practices Act and has been banned from doing business in the state.

Anchor BanCorp Wisconsin (ABCW) has defaulted on a loan from a group of banks led by U.S. Bancorp (USB) after the Federal Reserve Board rejected a request to extend the loan.

A group of payments companies experienced in international business have formed a network to support e-commerce merchants as they plan their global expansion.

Rep. Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, praised regulators on Friday for their changes to the final Basel III capital standards announced earlier in the week.

The Township of Mount Holly, New Jersey and a local citizens' group are seeking to settle a dispute now before the Supreme Court that threatens to undercut the Obama administration's crackdown on alleged discrimination in lending.

The Office of the Comptroller Currency ordered JPMorgan Chase to refund fees to certain retirement account customers whom it steered into its own mutual funds. The move reflected regulators' broader concerns about conflicts of interest in its giant asset management business.

Regulators increasingly are holding banks accountable for the misdeeds of vendors and customers. The trend reflects a broadening of their definition of what constitutes safety, soundness and reputational risks to banks. For senior industry executives, the implications are that banks will be pressured to police the behavior not only of employees but of those they deal with outside the bank as well.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling is expected to unveil new mortgage finance reform legislation this month — an effort that has virtually no chance of becoming law this year, but one that will undoubtedly shape the housing debate.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

The nation's biggest mutual thrift has endured litigation, activists' protests and a check-kiting scandal at Roma, a thrift it is trying to buy.

MasterCard Inc. asked the European Union’s highest court to overturn a regulatory decision on transaction fees that ended its ability to set rates on cross- border credit-card payments.

Foreign banking organizations will need to create massive compliance and reporting systems to handle the Volcker Rule, even if the vast majority of their dealings are done outside its scope.

WASHINGTON — The Senate Banking Committee said Wednesday that it would hold a hearing July 11 about the progress regulators have made in mitigating systemic risk.

Mortgage disclosures and supervision of non-bank entities will be top concerns for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as it enters its third official year of operation, according to its semi-annual rulemaking agenda released Wednesday.

Wal-Mart and Home Depot are among the companies being investigated by the New York attorney general over fees charged employees on prepaid cards used as worker paychecks.

Prudential Financial Inc.'s appeal against a designation that the firm is systemically important is unlikely to succeed, observers said, but could force the Federal Reserve Board to detail more about how it will supervise such companies.

A former president and chief executive of a Tennessee bank is going to prison for bank fraud.

Amazon.com Inc. and 7-Eleven Inc. sued Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. over card fees after rejecting a multibillion-dollar settlement in an antitrust case.