Rejected! Wells Fargo Gets Silent Treatment from NBA’s 76ers

“Wells Fargo” is suddenly the name that shall not be spoken for the Philadelphia 76ers.

The National Basketball Association team no longer refers to its home venue, the Wells Fargo Center, by name in press releases or elsewhere because of a business disagreement with the San Francisco bank, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. Instead, the team will refer to the arena now as just “The Center.”

None of the parties — the 76ers, Wells Fargo nor the owner of the arena — would specify exactly what soured the relationship between the team and the bank when all three were contacted by American Banker. It appears that the dispute involved a Wells sponsorship of the team that has ended.

Wells spokesman Jim Baum said that the bank used to be a sponsor of the 76ers in addition to holding the naming rights for the venue, but he declined to say why that sponsor relationship had ended.

Read on.

German Prosecutors Say Nine Suspects Targeted in Deutsche Bank Raids

FRANKFURT—Raids that included Deutsche Bank AG offices earlier this week targeted nine individuals in investigations related to suspected tax evasion by the bank’s clients, German prosecutors said Thursday.

The suspected individuals are employees of two companies that do clearing and settlement of securities transactions. The firms are the focus of prosecutors for allegedly helping clients attempt aggravated tax evasion in 2008 by claiming a total of €43 million ($48.7 million) in tax reimbursements. The alleged evasion took place through an arbitrage strategy known as “cum/ex” or “dividend stripping,” which involves using shares that pay dividends, Frankfurt prosecutors said.

Read on.

FirstBank Financial Services : Former Patriots Player and Former Bank Executive Charged with Securities Fraud

A former New England Patriots player and a former Regions Bank executive were arrested this morning on securities fraud charges in connection with an alleged Ponzi scheme involving fraudulent loans to professional athletes.

Will Allen, 36, of Davie, Fla., and Susan Daub, 55, of Coral Springs, Fla., were charged in a criminal complaint with one count of securities fraud. Allen played for the New York Giants from 2001 to 2005, the Miami Dolphins from 2006 to 2011, and the New England Patriots in 2012. Daub was previously employed as a vice president and private banker byRegions Bank in Florida. Allen and Daub were arrested this morning and had their initial appearances today before a magistrate judge in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

As alleged in the complaint, Allen and Daub were partners in Capital Financial Partners (CFP), a Massachusetts company whose website advertised “private lending to unique individuals.” According to the website, CFP “specialize[d] in issuing short-term loans to professional athletes.” To fund the loans, Allen and Daub allegedly solicited money from investors, telling them that their money would be loaned to the athletes, and that they would be repaid with interest according to a predefined schedule.

While CFP did make some loans to athletes, the complaint alleges that Allen and Daub diverted millions of investor dollars to themselves and other business ventures. To keep investors from discovering their fraud, Allen and Daub allegedly used newly invested money to make payments to existing investors, which they falsely characterized as interest and principal payments from the loan recipients. To generate additional money, Allen and Daub allegedly oversubscribed loans, falsely telling investors that the loans were larger than they actually were and collecting more money from investors than they were actually lending to athletes. In other instances, Allen and Daub allegedly collected money for loans that CFP never made at all.

Read on.

FHA issues new reverse mortgage rules to protect spouses

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Housing Administrationannounced changes to its reverse mortgage program designed to keep non-borrowing spouses in their homes after the last surviving borrower dies.

Earlier this year, the FHA released new guidance that allows FHA-approved lenders to delay foreclosure proceedings against non-borrowing spouses in the event of the death of the last surviving borrower.

Now, the FHA is expanding on those changes to its Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program, with a new policy that allows lenders to proceed with submitting claims on HECMs with eligible surviving non-borrowing spouses and case numbers assigned before August 4, 2014 in accordance with the terms of the mortgagee letter.

Claims will be submitted by:

• Electing to assign the HECM to HUD upon the death of the last surviving borrower, where the HECM would not otherwise be assignable to FHA solely as a result of the death of the borrower. (The Mortgagee Optional Election Assignment)

• Allowing claim payment following sale of the property by heirs or estate

• Foreclosing in accordance with the terms of the mortgage, and filing an insurance claim under the FHA insurance contract as endorsed

Read on.

NYDFS names NY regulator Lawsky’s temporary replacement

Anthony Albanese to lead regulator on interim basis.

And who is Anthony Albanese? Lawsky’s chief of staff. From the NY Times:

Mr. Albanese, who is 43, has been the main negotiator for all the bank enforcement actions under Mr. Lawsky. One of his most important duties was negotiating a settlement last year with the French bank BNP Paribas for transferring billions of dollars on behalf of Sudan and other countries blacklisted by the United States.

The New York Department of Financial Services has found its replacement for its soon-departing superintendent, Benjamin Lawsky.

Lawsky is set to step down from his position as the head of New York’s top financial regulator later this month. After Lawsky’s exit, his chief of staff, Anthony Albanese, will lead the NYDFS, albeit on an interim basis.

Lawsky himself made the announcement in a memo sent to NYDFS staffers. In the memo, which was recapped by the New York Times, Lawsky said the NYDFS will be in good hands while Gov. Andrew Cuomo searches for a permanent replacement.

Here’s Lawsky’s memo, per the New York Times:

As you all know by now I will be transitioning out of my role as Superintendent next week. I am pleased to report that when I depart, Anthony Albanese, my Chief of Staff, will take over as the Acting Superintendent while the Governor’s office conducts a search for a permanent replacement.

Most of you know Anthony well. He has been by my side since we launched and has played an incredibly important role in getting DFS to where it is today. Anthony has helped lead DFS since the day he got here in 2011. He is tough but fair and passionate about doing what’s right. His appointment for this period as Acting Superintendent means business as usual for the Department.

I know that under his leadership DFS will continue all of the important initiatives we have under way while also continuing to be a smart, modern, and forward-thinking prudential regulator. I also know that you will each continue to carry out the Governor’s vision for DFS in the months and years ahead. I can’t wait to watch all that you do.

Now everyone please get back to work.

Ben

Source: New York Times

Nevada Federal Court on FDCPA claims: DEFAULT NOTICE IS COLLECTION ACTIVITY

Livinglies's Weblog

For more information please call 954-495-9867 or 520-405-1688

===============================

see http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/foreclosure-notices-subject-to-fdcpa-52752/

It should not be news that FDCPA claims apply to default and other foreclosure notices. But the judicial bias exists, based upon the premise that it doesn’t matter who is owed money or how much; or there is the background policy assumption that the brunt of bank misbehavior should fall on their victims.

Fortunately Judges are retreating from those assumptions as they see more and more things they just don’t like: musical chairs with services, trustees and beneficiaries/mortgagees and demand figures that cannot be reconciled with the alleged loan. It DOES matter who owns the loan and it DOES matter how much was demanded to “reinstate” the loan, and it DOES matter  whether the “Servicer” is really the servicer or has any authority at all to be contacting, collecting or threatening borrowers.

The remedies under FDCPA are fairly limited…

View original post 585 more words

Is Deutsche Bank The Next Lehman?

Zerohedge:

Could this happen to Deutsche Bank?

First, we must state the obvious: If Deutsche Bank is the next Lehman, we will not know until events are moving at an uncontrollable and accelerating speed. The nature of all fractional-reserve banks — who are by definition bankrupt at all times – is to project an aura of stability until that illusion has already begun to implode.

By the time we are aware of a crisis – if one is in the offing — it will already be a roaring blaze by the time it is known publicly. It is by now well-established that truth is the first casualty of all banking crises. There will be little in the way of early warnings. To that end, we begin connecting the dots:

Here’s a re-cap of what’s happened at Deutsche Bank over the past 15 months:

In April of 2014, Deutsche Bank was forced to raise an additional 1.5 Billion of Tier 1 capital to support it’s capital structure. Why?
1 month later in May of 2014, the scramble for liquidity continued as DB announced the selling of 8 billion euros worth of stock – at up to a 30% discount. Why again? It was a move which raised eyebrows across the financial media. The calm outward image of Deutsche Bank did not seem to reflect their rushed efforts to raise liquidity. Something was decidedly rotten behind the curtain.
Fast forwarding to March of this year: Deutsche Bank fails the banking industry’s “stress tests” and is given a stern warning to shore up it’s capital structure.
In April, Deutsche Bank confirms it’s agreement to a joint settlement with the US and UK regarding the manipulation of LIBOR. The bank is saddled with a massive $2.1 billion payment to the DOJ. (Still, a small fraction of their winnings from the crime).
In May, one of Deutsche Bank’s CEOs, Anshu Jain is given an enormous amount of new authority by the board of directors. We guess that this is a “crisis move”. In times of crisis the power of the executive is often increased.
June 5: Greece misses it’s payment to the IMF. The risk of default across all of it’s debt is now considered acute. This has massive implications for Deutsche Bank.
June 6/7: (A Saturday/Sunday, and immediately following Greece’s missed payment to the IMF) Deutsche Bank’s two CEO’s announce their surprise departure from the company. (Just one month after Jain is given his new expanded powers). Anshu Jain will step down first at the end of June. Jürgen Fitschen will step down next May.
June 9: S&P lowers the rating of Deutsche Bank to BBB+ Just three notches above “junk”. (Incidentally, BBB+ is even lower than Lehman’s downgrade – which preceded it’s collapse by just 3 months)

Bank of America May Dodge a Legal Bullet

Bank of America may bask in the glow of a legal victory this week by Deutsche Bank.
New York’s top court on Thursday ruled in favor of a unit of the German bank in a case involving demands that it repurchase bonds backed by soured mortgages. The court ruled a six-year time limit for investors filing claims starts when a loan is originated. Investors had argued the clock should start later.

For Deutsche, this upheld dismissal of repurchase demands related to more than $300 million of loans. The benefit could be far greater for BofA. At the end of the first quarter, the bank said it had claims related to mortgage bonds held by private parties with an unpaid principal balance of $27.8 billion.

Read on.

The D.O.J gets ready for the next round….lets see if the banks get away…again!

Looks as if the new U.S. Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, is taking over the so called pursuing of bank settlements along the same lines her predecessor Eric Holder did. Let’s hope that this time around the banks are held accountable and investors are finally compensated.

The settlements relate to securities backed by residential mortgages that plunged in value during the financial crisis. Banks are expected to pay from a few hundred million dollars to $2 billion or $3 billion each, depending on their size and the level of misconduct they allegedly employed in arranging the securities.

On the surface it looks good. The U.S. government appears to be pushing the Department of Justice to hold more of the Wall Street banks accountable for the 2008 financial crisis. To date, the three biggest banks have paid more than $35 billion in cash and “consumer relief”and seven more, which include U.S. and European banks, Barclays, UBS, Credit Suisse, Deutsche, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Wells Fargo, are in line. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs may reach agreements by month’s end.

Read More

Regards,
Richard

Richard M. Bowen III
richard@richardmbowen.com
http://www.richardmbowen.com/
214- 604-5492