Legal issues and news

A federal appeals court ruled in favor of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, setting up a court split ahead of a highly anticipated Supreme Court hearing in October. The Fifth Circuit previously ruled that the agency's funding mechanism violates the Constitution's separation of powers doctrine.

On Thursday, a ransomware group published data apparently stolen from Tri Counties Bank, which suffered an outage to its ATM network last month.

Carrie Tolstedt, the former head of retail banking at the scandal-plagued bank, faces 16 months in prison after agreeing to plead guilty to obstructing a bank examination. The plea agreement serves as a warning to senior bank executives who regularly provide information to regulators.

The group behind the ongoing campaign allegedly has the support of a hosting provider that's complicit in helping spin-up new scam websites.

A federal judge allowed a Jeffrey Epstein victim to proceed with a claim that the banks knowingly benefited from Epstein's sex trafficking by providing him with financial services. But the judge dismissed the top counts in two suits.

Properly executed, the new anti-money-laundering program has the potential to cripple laundering networks by altering the landscape for financial services professionals.

Tolstedt, a key figure in the bank's fake-accounts scandal, could face prison time after pleading guilty to a criminal charge of obstructing a bank examination. She also agreed to pay a $17 million fine to bank regulators to resolve certain civil charges.

Old-fashioned check fraud is growing, and fraudsters find people to cash their checks — and tell them what to wear while doing it — through a popular messaging service.

JPMorgan Chase is suing the former executive to hold him responsible for any damages stemming from lawsuits accusing the bank of facilitating Jeffrey Epstein's sex-trafficking.

The San Francisco fintech made its name in refinancing student loans. Now it contends that a moratorium for federal student debt payments — put in place near the start of the pandemic — has cost it at least $150 million in profits.

The Ohio-based bank concentrated most of its lending branches in majority-white neighborhoods and did nothing to compensate for its lack of physical presence, the DOJ claims.

The only way for Fincen to assure that banks have the tools to identify illicit shell companies is for the agency to verify the information in its new beneficial ownership database.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra says the bureau is continuing with its enforcement agenda and that financial firms face risks from the Supreme Court case.

Charlie Javice claimed in a court filing that she was being scapegoated for the bank's faulty due diligence and that it was JPMorgan that asked her to come up with "synthetic data" on Frank users.

The Minneapolis company previously disclosed an investigation by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in connection with its management of prepaid cards for unemployment benefits during the pandemic. Now the bank says the agency is considering a potential enforcement action.

More than 50 million people are caught up in modern slavery, according to the U.N. Hidden crimes like human trafficking and elder abuse are more common than most people think. Ian Mitchell at The Knoble, who led crime detection at several financial institutions, works with banks to find signs of abuse and help law enforcement to help victims and catch perpetrators, including among Super Bowl crowds.

Toronto-Dominion Bank is on the hook for $1.2 after settling litigation over its connection to a massive Ponzi scheme, and Independent Bank Group in Texas agreed to pay $100 million. A third bank, HSBC, settled for a smaller amount.

Under the new policy, firms that come forward with misconduct before it becomes known to the public or prosecutors and then fully cooperate will receive "significant benefits" in any resulting deal, federal prosecutors in New York say.

The high court's inevitable decision on the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding structure will tell us a lot about how radical the court is willing to be.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has asked the high court to overrule a lower-court decision that threatens its funding structure. The justices didn't accept the case on Tuesday, but experts say it could still make the cut in the coming week.