Banking Law

Taxing Dilemma for UBS Clients: Confess to IRS, or Wait and See?

As the Internal Revenue Service and a major Swiss bank continue to litigate over just how many names of secret UBS AG account-holders must be turned over to federal authorities, United States residents who have been illegal evading taxes by hiding assets offshore face a difficult dilemma. If they come…

Jul 30, 2009 10:15 PM CDT

Is FTC Hedging on Plans to Apply ID Theft Rule to Law Firms? #ABAChicago

The Federal Trade Commission’s announcement that it would suspend implementation of a controversial regulation that would require many businesses to take steps to prevent identity theft gives the ABA more time to press its argument that the regulation should not be applied to lawyers, the association’s president said on Thursday.…

Jul 30, 2009 9:47 PM CDT

Mortgage Modification Stymied by Lucrative Lender Late Fees

Much has been said about how the so-called securitization of mortgage loans—reselling small fractions of the loans to multiple investors, sometimes again and again—has stymied efforts to encourage lenders to renegotiate mortgage interest and other loan terms with struggling homeowners. But another factor in addition to the difficulty of obtaining…

Jul 30, 2009 9:36 PM CDT

N.Y. Lawyer Among 4 Execs Charged in Alleged $422K-Plus ATM Scam

A New York lawyer is among four upper-middle-class individuals who forged a bond via New York University, where three of them studied, and then allegedly went on to collaborate in a claimed automatic teller machine scam that may have bilked banks of as much as $1 million. Attorney and alleged…

Jul 30, 2009 5:26 PM CDT

Lawmaker to Lenders: Modify Mortgages, or We’ll Revive ‘Cramdown’ Bill

The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee is threatening to revive stalled legislation that would give bankruptcy judges greater power to revise mortgage terms and even reduce the principal balance if lenders don’t start modifying more mortgages. Despite the mortgage relief programs rolled out this year, foreclosures and delinquencies…

Jul 30, 2009 12:27 AM CDT

US Drops Regulatory Charges Against Ex-Greenberg Lawyer

A former Greenberg Traurig lawyer feels vindicated by the decision of the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency to drop civil regulatory charges against him for advising a bank that was eventually shut down for fraud. Carlos Loumiet had been accused of covering up crimes for the bank, causing $127 million…

Jul 29, 2009 3:20 PM CDT

Goldman Sachs Lawyer Arrested in Underage Sex Sting

A lawyer for Goldman Sachs has been accused of trying to arrange a sexual tryst with an undercover investigator posing in online chats as a 15-year-old girl. Manhattan lawyer Todd Genger, 33, was arraigned Tuesday on charges of trying to disseminate indecent material to a minor, the New York Daily…

Jul 29, 2009 12:23 PM CDT

Billionaire Stanford Says Private Jail is Sweltering, Seeks Government Cell

A power outage made conditions in the private Texas jail in which he is now housed “intolerable,” eliminating both adequate ventilation and air conditioning, says billionaire R. Allen Stanford in a federal court filing. Held without bail as a flight risk, the head of Stanford Financial Group is seeking a…

Jul 27, 2009 11:40 PM CDT

Big Bank Blinks; Is This the End for Mandatory Consumer Arbitration?

One of the country’s major banks has blinked after announcements by two well-known groups that they would no longer participate in mandatory arbitration in which consumers are required to participate under the boilerplate terms of credit card agreements. JPMorgan Chase says it will no longer arbitrate such disputes and is…

Jul 24, 2009 9:52 PM CDT

Posner Questions Behavioral Economists and Proposed Credit Regulator

A proposed credit regulator that would encourage consumers to opt for “plain vanilla” financial products leaves a bad taste in the mouth of federal appeals judge Richard Posner. The judge writes in a Wall Street Journal editorial that the proposed law, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009, would…

Jul 23, 2009 2:13 PM CDT

Mayer Brown Hires 3 UK Partners in Move to Show ‘Bench Strength’

Mayer Brown is adding three partners to its London finance practice. London leveraged finance chief Dominic Griffiths told Legal Week that the additions are not based on predictions that the economy is recovering. Instead, the hires are part of a push to build the firm’s European corporate and finance groups.…

Jul 13, 2009 3:51 PM CDT

Judge Revokes $500K Bail for Billionaire R. Allen Stanford

Billionaire R. Allen Stanford had hoped to live with his girlfriend in a luxury apartment in Houston, albeit wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet, while preparing for his trial on federal charges concerning the alleged $7 billion bank fraud he is accused of masterminding. But U.S. District Judge David Hittner revoked…

Jul 1, 2009 12:39 AM CDT

Goodwin Leader Is Latest Lateral Lured to Growing Linklaters Office in NYC

Partner Robin Maxwell of Goodwin Procter is the latest lateral lured to the rapidly growing New York City office of London-based Linklaters. The firm today announced the acquisition of Maxwell, who headed Goodwin Procter’s financial services team, saying that her banking regulatory experience would be a much-needed skill as financial…

Jun 29, 2009 8:25 PM CDT

High Court Rules States Have Power to Police National Bank Lending

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that federal law does not preclude states from suing over discriminatory lending practices of national banks. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion in the case, and was joined by liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens and Stephen G.…

Jun 29, 2009 2:56 PM CDT

High Court to Decide Reverse Bias Case as It Ends Term Today

The U.S. Supreme Court will issue a decision today in a case brought by white firefighters challenging a decision to throw out a promotional exam because no blacks got top scores. White firefighters had argued the city of New Haven, Conn., discriminated against them when it tossed the test. The…

Jun 29, 2009 11:50 AM CDT