Law and legal issues

The former crypto wunderkid added a presidential-pardon application to the long list of attempts to get his sentence reduced.

The suit tests an unusual theory: that a borrower's lawyer crossed from representing a client into joining a $145 million fraud.

The consumer intelligence company alleged that Chime willfully misused J.D. Power's name and trademark in its marketing materials. The neobank said it would "vigorously" defend its position.

A federal judge blocked Illinois from enforcing its interchange fee ban for taxes and tips against national banks and card networks after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's recent intervention materially altered the court's preemption analysis.

Lawmakers early on Monday voted to push the effective date of the law, which would ban interchange fees on the tax and tip portions of transactions, to July 1, 2027, marking the second delay as merchants and banks continue to battle in court. 

The Department of Justice said that Birmingham, Alabama-based Regions sought forgiveness from the Small Business Administration for a Paycheck Protection Program loan that the bank should have known did not qualify.

The National Credit Union Administration Tuesday submitted a rule to the Office of Management and Budget stating that federal law preempts state laws on interchange, blocking an Illinois statute banning the collection of swipe fees on taxes and tips.

The $110 million settlement, which was mapped out last fall, requires Wells Fargo to establish a $100 million fund to provide downpayment and closing-cost assistance to eligible borrowers who live in or plan to buy a home in certain low- and moderate-income census tracts.

Columbia caught the attacker still inside its systems on Dec. 19, three days before the access window closed, then took four months to notify customers.

Parker Group unexpectedly ceased operating last week, then filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy a few days later as sponsor banks and customers were left scrambling.

Banking groups that sued the state of Illinois over its law barring banks from charging interchange fees on taxes and tips cheered an appeals court ruling remanding the law to a lower court and vowed to keep the law going into effect, which is slated for July 1.

The opinion that supports national banks' ability to avoid paying interest on certain mortgage accounts in New York is unlikely to be the last word.

The Securities and Exchange Commission initially offered $179.5 million to Michael Bacon, who provided key information to the government about Wells Fargo's fake-accounts scandal. But shortly after SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins took office, the amount was sharply reduced.

An April 20 bankruptcy filing accuses Kfir Gavrieli of recruiting friends, family and his synagogue to sign sham contracts that inflated Aspiration's revenue.

Plaintiffs say Team 313 stole Social Security numbers and IDs. Chime says no data left its systems. None of the suits has its own evidence.

The litigants, with some of the industry's deepest pockets, may be filing the rare cases to flag and potentially punish bad brokers, one expert said.

San Diego County Credit Union won a court ruling that should help in its effort to get out of its deal to merge with a local competitor. A lawyer for SDCCU said he believes the judge's decision "signals the end of any merger between the two institutions."

The case exposes a systemic risk for banks: incident-response and ransomware-negotiation firms receive sensitive breach details that a corrupted insider can sell back to the attackers.

As judges have shown in other recent cases involving UBS and Stifel, firms have a high bar to clear if they want an arbitration award vacated.

New York extracted $5 million and a broker registration from Uphold over its promotion of CredEarn, a yield product whose issuer collapsed in 2020.