Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac junior shareholders face an uphill battle in their lawsuits challenging the Treasury’s August 2012 “net worth sweep” that effectively allows Uncle Sam to confiscate all of the companies’ profits, warns a legal expert. Investors are challenging the amended agreements regarding the seniority of Fannie and Freddie preferred stock owned by the federal government over investors’ GSE preferred stocks. More than a dozen lawsuits filed against the government – led by hedge funds Perry Capital and Fairholme Capital Management – are pending in federal district court in Washington, DC, and in the Court of Federal Claims.

A North Carolina federal magistrate has recommended that a Justice Department fraud case against Bank of America be dismissed, but he also said a separate Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit against the bank based on a different federal law should proceed. The DOJ last August filed suit against BofA under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act, accusing the bank of defrauding investors in the sale of $855 million of non-agency MBS. Last week, U.S. Magistrate David Cayer of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina found that the government failed to prove the bank made “material” false statements to the former Federal Housing Finance Board. The DOJ claimed...

Allonhill LLC, a Denver-based due-diligence firm that served both Wall Street and primary market lenders, recently filed for bankruptcy protection, just days after losing a civil case where it was found liable for breach of contract and fraud, and ordered to pay its former client, Aurora Bank FSB, more than $25 million in damages. Last year, Allonhill’s owners – including principal Sue Allon – sold most of the firm’s assets to Stewart Title. From a legal standpoint, it was not a “franchise” deal, which means Stewart should not be on the hook for any actions of the corporate entity. However, the case may be...

The Republican-controlled House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations plans to hold a hearing on allegations of discrimination and retaliation within the CFPB on the morning of April 2, 2014. “Committee staff has received corroborating information from a CFPB employee who alleges she has experienced gender discrimination and retaliation for filing an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint with the CFPB’s Human Capital Office,” said a committee memorandum accompanying the committee’s announcement.

House Republicans have found – or been given – yet another axe to grind against the CFPB: the confidentiality or downright secrecy associated with the bureau’s advisory council meetings. Currently, the CFPB has four such groups: the Community Bank Advisory Council, the Credit Union Advisory Council, the Academic Research Council and the Consumer Advisory Board. The groups are made up of industry representatives, consumer activists and academics.

Of the more than 30,000 consumers complaints the CFPB has received about debt collection, more than one third said the debt is not owed, and most of those said the debt was never theirs to begin with, the bureau said in a recent report. Among other top gripes, nearly a quarter of the complaints received by the bureau were about debt collectors using inappropriate communication tactics. More than half of those complaints cited frequent or repeated calls from a collector and often the collector had called the wrong phone number. “Consumers also complain about debt collectors calling their places of employment or collectors using obscene, profane or abusive language,” the CFPB said.

The CFPB issued its first Freedom of Information Act report last week, finding that the bureau’s average response time for all simple “processed perfected requests” was 8.36 days with virtually no backlog.The average response time for complex requests was 31 days. The bureau defines a “processed perfected request” as “a request for records which reasonably describes such records and is made in accordance with published rules stating the time, place, fees (if any) and procedures to be followed,” and for which the bureau has taken final action in every respect.

With just one accord this week, the Federal Housing Finance Agency more than doubled the amount it has recovered on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from issuers and underwriters that sold subprime and Alt A MBS to the government-sponsored enterprises. Bank of America agreed to a $9.3 billion settlement that covers its own dealings as well as those of Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch, which it acquired in 2008. The agreement covers some $57 billion of MBS issued or underwritten by these firms. BofA did not admit...[Includes one data chart]

The Association of American Retired Persons hit the Department of Housing and Urban Development again with another class-action lawsuit for allegedly failing to protect four surviving spouses of Home Equity Conversion Mortgage borrowers against foreclosure and eviction.The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where last September a federal judge found HUD in violation of federal law in a similar case. The court remanded the case to HUD to determine the appropriate remedy for the problem. The AARP Foundation Litigation and the law firm of Mehri & Skalet, the same entities that successfully litigated last year’s reverse mortgage case, represented the plaintiffs, none of them younger than 65 years of age. The suit challenges HUD’s promulgation of HECM regulations, which allegedly is ...

Thirty-three FHA lenders were sanctioned and 32 others lost their FHA approval between October and December 2013 because of actions taken by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Mortgagee Review Board. The board also imposed $516,500 in civil money penalties and entered into one settlement agreement to bring an unidentified lender into compliance. During the three-month period, one lender entered into an indemnification agreement with the MRB over one FHA-insured single-family loan. FHA lenders were subject to MRB disciplinary actions for various reasons, including failing to establish and implement a servicing quality control plan and failing to perform loss mitigation as required by the agency. Actions were also taken against lenders for failing to conduct monthly reviews of delinquent loans to determine the type of loss mitigation needed, as well as for failing to repay HUD losses in connection with indemnification agreements. Noncompliance with HUD’s annual recertification requirements also resulted in ...