Law and legal issues

The company is paying $75 million in penalties and restitution in connection with SEC allegations that its investment advisory arm overcharged customers it inherited in its Wachovia acquisition in 2008. The settlement is said to show the importance of conducting extensive compliance checks in a rapidly consolidating industry.

The lender was accused in a recent lawsuit of failing to meet its obligations to underserved borrowers in lieu of wealthy clients.

Comerica CEO Curt Farmer and CFO James Herzog as well as the company itself face a purported class action by shareholders for allegedly making false and misleading statements about the Dallas company's oversight of the Treasury Department's Direct Express program.

The decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan came in a securities fraud lawsuit brought by a trustee for note purchasers in a 2014 syndicated loan deal led by JPMorgan Chase.

A co-founder of Totem, a neobank for Native Americans, initiated legal action against his counterpart. Disputes are not uncommon in the startup world.

While federal efforts to provide funding for minority small businesses wither, a lawsuit seeks to shut down an effective source of private capital.

Roughly 55% of people sentenced for embezzling funds from 2007 to 2017 were women, according to new research. Some experts suggest women are more likely to hold accounting and money-handling jobs, while others say the trend is a reflection of biases by employers and law enforcement.

The SEC and CFTC charged 11 Wall Street firms $549 million in penalties over recordkeeping violations. The agencies vow to continue enforcing compliance throughout the industry.

The verdict ends a decade-long lawsuit over the Federal Housing Finance Agency's amendment to a stock repurchase agreement in 2012.

Chief Executive Andy Cecere is among the defendants in a shareholder lawsuit that alleges that top officials at the Minneapolis bank profited from the concealment of employee misconduct. A U.S. Bancorp spokesperson denied the allegations.

The three former Washington Federal Bank for Savings board members were accused of giving the OCC false information in an attempt to hide embezzlement. They could face up to five years in prison for attempting to deceive the OCC.

UMB Financial hired an outside company to provide customer service in connection with some of its credit cards and debit cards. In a lawsuit, the Missouri bank alleges that the vendor suddenly stopped performing its duties, and that the bank's own employees had to step into the void.

The court ruled that the Federal Reserve did not have to provide information about other banks that had applied for master accounts.

The Seafarers International Union sued Bank of America's senior managers and board alleging breach of their fiduciary duty in managing a prepaid debit card program that distributed unemployment benefits during the pandemic.

Under settlements with the SEC, Wells Fargo and BNP Paribas will pay millions of dollars in penalties for employees using unofficial communications like WhatsApp. In all 11 firms agreed to pay penalties, while the CFTC took separate actions.

A federal judge's decision to bar the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from enforcing a small business data collection rule pending the outcome of a Supreme Court case could give banks an opening to block a pending $8 late fee rule as well.

A Texas judge dealt the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau a setback that has changed the bureau's calculus for furthering its near-term agenda. But an ambitious Supreme Court could also call all of the bureau's final rules into question.

Two bank trade groups have asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to relieve all banks from complying with its small-business lending rule until after the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether the bureau's funding is constitutional.

In 18 states, consumers are not allowed to use trained debt resolution professionals to seek relief from their creditors. That needs to change.

A federal judge has temporarily stopped the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from implementing its small-business data collection rule until after the Supreme Court rules next year on whether the bureau's funding is constitutional.