Legal issues and news

Thomas Eide's CB Surety ran small charges on prepaid cards to dilute clients' charge-back ratios, keeping open the accounts banks would have closed.

A group of community development financial institutions are asking a federal court in California to compel Treasury to disburse funds from the CDFI Fund before they expire in September.

A federal grand jury says Garrett Douglas Johnson borrowed against law-firm trust accounts that never existed, using new loans to pay off the old ones.

A former Regions Bank employee who's been banned from the industry was allegedly part of a fraud ring that cost the bank roughly $400,000.

The agency says the subprime auto lender pledged the same car loans to several lenders and bond deals at once, leaving investors owed about $945 million.

Litigation involving Amalgamated Bank highlights the risks that banks may face when highly placed employees leave their jobs on bad terms.

During a court hearing Tuesday, appellate judges expressed skepticism about a Colorado effort to cap the rates on consumer loans that out-of-state banks make to Coloradans.

Eight pleaded guilty in an $11-million scheme that changed or invented business registry records, then opened accounts as the payee at about 30 institutions.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals is reviewing a challenge to Colorado's effort to exercise more power over the interest rates charged to its residents.

Bankers, particularly at the midsize and regional level, should be on the lookout for more opportunities to develop networked solutions to common problems, such as know-your-customer operations and fraud detection.

The agency quietly returned the digital asset company's national trust bank charter filing without issuing a decision. Zerohash plans to refile this month.

Depository institutions filed about 3% of the suspicious activity reports Fincen counted but accounted for 61% of the dollars — roughly $3 billion.

The Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's decision to permanently exempt U.S. businesses from disclosing their true owners eliminates a database banks hoped would help them satisfy their customer due diligence. 

The company, which says it serves 93% of credit unions, expects most key processes to run by mid-August. Its status page still said "Investigating" Wednesday.

Santander's employee data was breached. Credit unions that were never breached are suing over the cards they had to reissue.

A 10-state coalition is asking a federal court to put a halt to the OCC's rules which pre-empt laws on banks paying interest on mortgage escrow deposits.

USAA sued Fifth Third last month over four patents. The bank had already asked the patent office to cancel two of them.

A report released this week by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., shines a light on what is required of banks when high-net-worth clients engage in suspicious activity.