Legal issues and news

TD Bank's guilty plea to extensive money-laundering charges last week did not include any criminal charges against individual bank executives. That absence has critics fuming, but experts say bringing charges against individuals isn't so easy.

The Bank Policy Institute and The Clearing House filed a motion to join the central bank's defense of Regulation II.

Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said his tenure at the agency could be characterized as simply reading statutes rather than finding novel ways to enforce regulations.

As financial fraud becomes more and more sophisticated, banks need to get proactive about protecting their customers from scammers. This is particularly true of seniors, whose deposits are a key source of banks' core deposits.

For more than a decade, the bank allowed billions of dollars from illicit activities to flow through the U.S. financial system unchecked. Some are wondering why examiners didn't put a stop to it sooner.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Department of Justice issued a consent order against Wisconsin-based nonbank mortgage originator Fairway Independent Mortgage over redlining allegations. Fairway is the country's fifth-largest mortgage originator by volume.

Regulators' asset cap on TD Bank for money-laundering violations has cemented the enforcement tool as a supreme cudgel to rein in problem banks, while other tools devised in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis gather dust.

The Supreme Court ruled this year that companies facing civil money penalties have the right to request a jury trial. The ruling is going to change the way regulators and companies think about enforcement actions.

The Canadian bank is indefinitely prohibited from growing assets at its two U.S. subsidiaries as the result of a sweeping settlement over money-laundering violations. While only the second imposition of such a penalty ever, experts say it will not be the last.