Category Archives: Finance and Banking Law

PayPal Has A New Agreement.

24 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Consumer Law, Contract Law, FCC, Finance and Banking Law, Government, Telemarketing, Telephone Consumer Protection Act

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PayPal’s New Agreement and the FCC, Editor: D. A. Jeremy Telman Valparaiso Univ. Law School, ContractsProf Blog

http://tinyurl.com/odzogfg

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission acted to approve a number of proposals that update the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act), popularly known as the  “Do Not Call” law that prohibits companies from interrupting consumers’ dinner time conversations with pesky telemarketing calls. . . .

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S&P Settlement For Defrauding Investors That Led To Financial Crisis.

14 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by in Consumer Law, Finance and Banking Law, Foreclosure, Standard & Poor

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DOJ and State Partners Secure $1.375 Billion Settlement with S&P for Defrauding Investors in Lead Up to the Financial Crisis, by Sabrina I. Pacifici, BeSpacific Blog

http://tinyurl.com/l8lykkr

News release: ‘Attorney General Eric Holder announced today [February 3, 2015] that the Department of Justice and 19 states and the District of Columbia have entered into a $1.375 billion settlement agreement with the rating agency Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC, along with its parent corporation McGraw Hill Financial Inc., to resolve allegations that S&P had engaged in a scheme to defraud investors in structured financial products known as Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS) and Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs).  The agreement resolves the department’s 2013 lawsuit against S&P, along with the suits of 19 states and the District of Columbia. Each of the lawsuits allege that investors incurred substantial losses on RMBS and CDOs for which S&P issued inflated ratings that misrepresented the securities’ true credit risks.  Other allegations assert that S&P falsely represented that its ratings were objective, independent and uninfluenced by S&P’s business relationships with the investment banks that issued the securities. The settlement announced today is comprised of several elements. In addition to the payment of $1.375 billion, S&P has acknowledged conduct associated with its ratings of RMBS and CDOs during 2004 to 2007 in an agreed statement of facts.  It has further agreed to formally retract an allegation that the United States’ lawsuit was filed in retaliation for the defendant’s decisions with regard to the credit of the United States. Finally, S&P has agreed to comply with the consumer protection statutes of each of the settling states and the District of Columbia, and to respond, in good faith, to requests from any of the states and the District of Columbia for information or material concerning any possible violation of those laws. ’On more than one occasion, the company’s leadership ignored senior analysts who warned that the company had given top ratings to financial products that were failing to perform as advertised,’ said Attorney General Holder.  ’As S&P admits under this settlement, company executives complained that the company declined to downgrade underperforming assets because it was worried that doing so would hurt the company’s business.  While this strategy may have helped S&P avoid disappointing its clients, it did major harm to the larger economy, contributing to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.’ . . . [Emphasis added.] Continue reading →

Hiring A Private Investigator To Find Hidden Assets?

04 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by in Divorce, Family Law, Finance and Banking Law, Hidden Assets

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Private Investigators: 5 Things To Be Aware Of When Hiring A PI For A Bank Account Search, by Fred L. Abrams, Asset Search Blog

http://tinyurl.com/k6l5nah

This is the first post in my new series about what private investigators can & cannot do legally when searching for hidden assets. Divorcing spouses, creditors bringing forced collection proceedings, etc., may search for assets by hiring private investigators and/or information brokers who try to detect secret bank accounts. The post asks: what standards should be followed when investigating bank accounts at U.S. financial institutions? At the conclusion it discusses some best practices. . . .

Identifying, Then Immobilizing, Stolen Assets.

31 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by in Bankruptcy Law, Child Support, Criminal Law, Divorce, Family Law, Finance and Banking Law, Hidden Assets, Marital Asset

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Recovering Assets By Identifying & Immobilizing Them, by Fred Abrams, Asset Search Blog

http://tinyurl.com/pmmjgke

Identifying and immobilizing assets in a timely fashion can be paramount to asset recovery cases ranging from an ultra-high net worth divorce to a forced collection proceeding against a debtor.

The abstract about ‘Suspending Suspicious Transactions’¹ similarly mentions the ‘timely identification and immobilization’ of  assets.  The abstract discusses this with regard to money laundering and terrorist financing:

‘Seizure and confiscation of proceeds of crime, and funds intended to finance terrorism, are key objectives of the global initiative to combat money laundering and terrorism financing. The timely identification and immobilization of such funds are critical to permit the action necessary to prevent the flight of illicit assets beyond the reach of national law enforcement and prosecutorial authorities.’

Suspending Suspicious Transactions was published during July 2013 by the World Bank.  It examines the role Financial Intelligence Units, (‘FIUs’), can have in freezing assets and/or postponing financial transactions at banks.

Suspending Suspicious Transactions also supplies fact patterns showing how FIUs work under anti-money laundering/countering financing of  terrorism, (‘AML/CFT”), laws. . . .

Bad GPS Is A Defense? Who Knew?

06 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Consumer Law, Finance and Banking Law, Foreclosure

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Bank Robs House By Mistake, Refuses To Pay Up, by Joe Patrice, Above The Law Blog

http://tinyurl.com/mlm78h9

Imagine returning home from vacation and finding your home cleaned out. The thieves grabbed all the furniture, all the gadgets, all the kitchenware, and left you nothing.

That’s what happened to an Ohio woman recently, and the police are refusing to help.

That’s because the perpetrator was First National Bank. Except Katie Barnett was not behind on her payments; the bank just repossessed the wrong house.

Fair enough. Mistakes happen. The bank is going to pay her back though, right? . . . .

10 Top Law-Related TED Videos.

20 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by in Bad Legal Writing, Computer Forensics, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Computer Virus, Copyright, Criminal Law, Cybersecurity, Digital Millenium Copyright Act, Discovery, Encryption, Evidence, Finance and Banking Law, Fraud, Google, Government, Identity Theft, Intellectual Property, Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Legal Writing, Legalese, Malware, Management, Patent Law, PC Computers, Plain Language, Presentations, Search Engines, Trial Tips and Techniques, Trojans, Video

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Top 10 Legal TED Talks, by Tim Baran, Legal Productivity Blog

http://www.legalproductivity.com/op-ed/top-10-legal-ted-talks/

Have you heard of TED? It began in 1984 as a conference and now covers a wide range of topics in more than 100 languages.  Think of it as a massive brain trust that shares great ideas and information.

Each of the law-related TED talks listed in this article are worthwhile on their own: (1) four ways to fix a broken legal system; (2) eliminate legalese by using plain English; (3) how to beat a patent troll; (4) how the Internet will change government; (5) laws that choke creativity; (6) copyright law; (7) why eyewitnesses get it wrong; (8) how technology could make crime worse; (9) the Internet and anonymity online; and (10) how great leaders inspire. -CCE

How Target Missed Malware Alarms and Blew It.

14 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by in Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Consumer Law, Credit Repair, Criminal Law, Finance and Banking Law, Identity Theft

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Missed Alarms and 40 Million Stolen Credit Card Numbers: How Target Blew It, by Michael Riley, Ben Elgin, Dune Lawrence, and Carol Matlack, Bloomberg  Businessweek Technology

http://tinyurl.com/njsy4rm

The biggest retail hack in U.S. history wasn’t particularly inventive, nor did it appear destined for success. In the days prior to Thanksgiving 2013, someone installed malware in Target’s (TGT) security and payments system designed to steal every credit card used at the company’s 1,797 U.S. stores. At the critical moment—when the Christmas gifts had been scanned and bagged and the cashier asked for a swipe—the malware would step in, capture the shopper’s credit card number, and store it on a Target server commandeered by the hackers.

It’s a measure of how common these crimes have become, and how conventional the hackers’ approach in this case, that Target was prepared for such an attack. . . .

Federal Reserve and Banking Regulations.

06 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by in Federal Reserve System, Finance and Banking Law, Government

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Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

http://www.federalreserve.gov/default.htm

 This site is about the Federal Reserve and banking regulations. The topics are divided as:

 Recent Developments, About the Fed, News and Events, Monetary Policy, Banking Information and Regulation, Payment Systems, Economic Research & Data, Consumer Information, Community Development, Reporting Forms, and Publications. -CCE

Tax Audit Triggers and How To Avoid Them.

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by in Finance and Banking Law, Government, Internal Revenue Service

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10 Red Flags That Can Cause a Tax Audit, by Docstoc Articles, Quicken Docstoc

http://tinyurl.com/my99j5b

There are plenty of common audit triggers that business owners know to avoid. Never mix your business and personal finances. Don’t deduct things without receipts. Most of these preventative measures come down to common sense.

However, every year countless businesses get hit with an audit they never saw coming, and it ends up wasting their precious time and money. Where did they go wrong? Here are 10 little-known audit triggers that every business should know (and some suggestions on how to avoid them) . . . .

How Do Jurors In A Recession Really Feel About The Financial Industry?

09 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Class Actions, Corporate Law, Finance and Banking Law, Jury Persuasion, Jury Selection, Litigation, Trial Tips and Techniques, Voir Dire, White Collar Crime

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Take This To The Bank: Jurors’ Evaluations Of Financial Industry Defendants During A Recession, by Jill Leibold Ph.D., Director, Jury Research, Elizabeth Babbitt, M.A., Consultant, and Louis A. Huber III, of Schlee, Huber, McMullen and Krause, LITIGATION INSIGHTS

http://tinyurl.com/nx84u56

[I]n the following article, published in DRI’s, For the Defense magazine, we wanted to evaluate biases in the way jurors would view banking or finance defendants. Given that almost all of Americans have felt they’ve been affected by the most recent recession, we conducted a study to gauge those positive or negative attitudes toward the financial industry as well as piece together how these issues could shape jurors’ perceptions toward banking and finance defendants come trial. . . .