Legal issues and news

Federal prosecutors say Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, accepted bribes in return for exerting political influence — including helping Fred Daibes, a small-bank executive who had been accused of loan fraud.

At the Sibos conference, cybersecurity leaders at banks and other experts debated how to train employees to thwart threats that AI has intensified.

The move to create data consortia and proprietary information networks is creating exactly the kind of information silos that money launderers exploit today.

The private equity firms accused the bank of concealing key changes to a credit agreement, in part because it wanted to win future muni bond business from Brightline Holdings.

Educational institutions ought to have some skin in the game when it comes to the student loan market.

The lawsuit takes issue with the agency's 2022 guidance on nonsufficient funds fees, a hot-button topic in the banking industry. The FDIC is asking a judge to dismiss the case, arguing that the plaintiffs lack standing to sue.

More elderly consumers are being diagnosed with Alzheimer's and dementia — making them vulnerable to scammers. Financial institutions are seeking special certifications to better equip themselves to help.

The managers of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX sued the parents of co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to "recover millions of dollars in fraudulently transferred and misappropriated funds," according to a court filing.

The ruling comes in a lawsuit New York Attorney General Letitia James filed in 2020, claiming Jonathan Braun and others made thousands of merchant cash advances to small businesses, charged annualized interest that sometimes exceeded 1,000% and defrauded and harassed borrowers. 

Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said most small businesses will need to report information about their beneficial owners at the start of next year; certain financial and government entities are exempt because of their preexisting regulatory requirements.

Bancrédito International Bank and Trust Corp. "willfully violated" the Bank Secrecy Act, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The penalty was the first under a two-year-old federal rule aimed at closing gaps in anti-money-laundering enforcement.

Carrie Tolstedt, the company's former retail banking chief, was sentenced to three years of probation, including six months of home confinement. A federal judge detailed why she denied the stiffer sentence sought by federal prosecutors, who wanted to send a message about the consequences of white-collar crime.

Carrie Tolstedt, scheduled to be sentenced Friday for her role in the company's phony-accounts scandal, has already paid for her crime and should receive three years probation, her attorneys argue in a sentencing memo. Prosecutors have recommended a year in prison.

The FBI, NSA and CISA highlighted the emerging dangers of AI-powered deepfakes in phishing campaigns and cataloged protections companies can deploy.

The head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau defended the agency and its mortgage rules in particular on the 15th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

A district court judge ruled that Congress did not give the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau broad authority to look for discrimination, putting a major dent into the bureau's efforts to apply anti-discrimination principles to non-lending products such as advertising.

The deal, approved by a federal judge on Friday, resolves claims alleging that former CEO Tim Sloan and other bank executives made misleading statements to investors, the media and Congress.

Fraudsters are leveraging advanced artificial intelligence to impersonate customers and deceive financial institutions, but the industry is fighting back with detection systems.

Protesters gathered outside the New York bank's headquarters last week, demanding restitution for what they allege was mismanagement. The bank did not give ground in its response to the demonstration.

The settlement resolves allegations dating to 2014 and covers 85 minority employees who alleged they were paid lower wages than their white counterparts and faced retaliation.