Legal issues and news

The saga over cryptocurrency regulation took another twist courtesy of a comment buried in a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit that hints at a case for U.S. jurisdiction over the ethereum blockchain.

A new Treasury Department request for comment invites the public to weigh in on how cryptocurrencies are used in illegal activities. It's part of the Biden administration's larger push to create a regulatory framework for digital assets.

The class-action lawsuit was brought on behalf of mortgage borrowers who were allegedly placed into forbearance during the early days of the pandemic without their consent.

A federal judge found last year that a credit reporting dispute did not have to be investigated because the consumer's complaint was frivolous. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission argue that the decision undermines a key purpose of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

The document automation company Ocrolus recently launched a new version of its fraud detection platform. Here's how it works and what other services lenders should consider.

As Treasury cracks down on DeFi, observers say merging the worlds of traditional and decentralized finance is an increasingly impossible dream.

An appeals court ruled that the electronic delivery of private information that was not made public did not constitute real harm to the consumer.

Citigroup persuaded a federal appeals court to force a group of Revlon creditors to return more than half a billion dollars it accidentally sent them.

Bank of America is facing off in court with the bond insurer Ambac Financial Group in a $2.7 billion case that's one of its last legal hangovers from the subprime crisis.

Celsius Network, the bankrupt cryptocurrency lender, may have hidden its financial trouble from its investors and "engaged in improper manipulation of the price" of the platform's tokens to boost the company's balance sheet and financials, according to a new court filing.

After the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency cracked down on a $2.8 billion-asset bank, industry observers expect more scrutiny of the ties between banks and financial technology startups.

It remains to be seen what the capped price for Russian oil will be or whether the move will stabilize world energy prices.

Executives at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce's London office kept a book full of "sexually suggestive comments" about women for a decade, in the latest employment tribunal case to shine a light on banking's sexist culture. 

Though fewer people are writing checks, banks of all sizes are seeing a massive increase in check fraud since 2020. Recouping losses from bad checks is pitting banks against each other, and regulators may have to weigh in.

The 2012 order, which came alongside fines to U.S. authorities totaling nearly $2 billion, had sullied the London-based bank's reputation. "Over the last decade HSBC's employees have worked hard to transform the bank's financial crime risk management capabilities," HSBC says.

Celsius Network, the bankrupt cryptocurrency lender, is seeking to give coins back to a sliver of users who are locked out of their accounts. 

The state Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a lawsuit involving one of the nation's largest debt buyers. At issue is how much detail the industry must disclose about what consumers allegedly owe.

The Department of Justice's department of legal counsel said that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s board members can bring matters into consideration and vote, even without approval from the agency's chair. 

A decade ago, Think Finance partnered with Native American tribes in an effort to avoid state interest-rate caps on consumer loans. After the company's legal woes finally ended this month, court documents shed light on its rapid rise and steep fall.

Banks have long lamented the lack of transparency surrounding the government's use of suspicious activity reports, which are submitted to Fincen and passed along to the department.