Legal issues and news

After a Texas bank settled allegations by the Department of Justice, experts were split about the extent of the exposure for banks and fintechs that took part in the pandemic-era program.

In hindsight, Sam Bankman-Fried's April interview with Bloomberg's "Odd Lots" podcast was a harbinger of his epic collapse last week. He described a "box" that has value only because other people put money in it, and, when confronted with the idea that he described a Ponzi scheme, admitted there was a "depressing amount of validity" to that.

The ruling means that a lower court's pro-consumer decision cannot be used as a precedent in other litigation. Consumer advocates had hoped the case would make it more difficult for debt buyers in North Carolina to file a large volume of lawsuits, which often lead to default judgments against borrowers.

The crisis sparked by the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX crypto empire ensnared BlockFi, a troubled digital-asset lender once worth $3 billion but which has now limited activity on its platform.

Spencer Savings in New Jersey is taking investor Larry Seidman to court, alleging he's conspiring with other customers to convert the bank to stock ownership. Seidman says it's a farce: "I'm in a conspiracy with people I don't know."

Sam Bankman-Fried's digital-asset empire filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware, capping a rapid downfall for the 30-year-old entrepreneur and onetime crypto king.

Former Goldman Sachs Group banker Asante Berko was arrested on charges that he orchestrated bribes to Ghanaian officials while employed at the investment bank.

Scams against the elderly are responsible for more than $3 billion in losses each year, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Credit unions say they are seeing more cases, and often the hardest part is getting the victims to admit they've been taken advantage of.

The Canadian-owned bank vowed to appeal the large verdict, which illustrated the risks that banks take on when they shoulder the liabilities of companies they acquire.

UBS Group's Frankfurt and Munich offices are being searched by prosecutors as part of a money laundering investigation linked to the sanctioned Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, people familiar with the probe said. 

JPMorgan Chase agreed to settle a dispute with a London trader it fired during a spoofing probe and then refused to rehire after a judge said the investment bank had to give him his job back.

Both sides in the litigation over 2012 Federal Housing Finance Agency amendments to stock purchase agreements say they're weighing their options.

Deutsche Bank was told by the German financial watchdog BaFin that it must fix its controls within given deadlines if it wants to avoid a financial punishment.

The central bank terminated a cease-and-desist order issued against the Agricultural Bank of China and its New York branch in 2016 for breaking anti-money-laundering rules.

Some 16 million applications for student debt relief will be approved by this week, provided the White House plan survives court challenges, President Biden said Thursday. 

The Minneapolis bank disclosed the investigation four months after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reached a settlement with Bank of America over the distribution of unemployment insurance benefits on prepaid debit cards.

Following the verdict, the student-loan servicer could potentially owe Louis Beryl more than $4.4 million in severance money. Navient fired Beryl less than three months after acquiring Earnest, the student loan refinancing company that he co-founded.

U.S. Supreme Court justices questioned the legality of stiff penalties the federal government says it can impose on people who fail to file required reports listing their foreign bank accounts.

The increases may simply reflect better detection and reporting, but banks continue to facilitate large ransom payments to sanctioned individuals.

Legal experts are gaming out the various options for the CFPB after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled on Oct. 19 that the bureau's funding is unconstitutional.