- Danegeld: Wells Fargo agrees to pay $42 million to settle activist groups’ exotic legal claims re: REO property; much will directly go to support the groups [BLT]
- On horrors of San Francisco landlordship, “Pacific Heights” still all too realistic [David Boaz, Cato]
- Problem in Thomas Perez/HUD/St. Paul affair was not that DoJ chose to settle in such a way as to minimize its losses, but that it had pursued such a weak case in the first place [Richard Painter]
- Dean Zarras on HUD v. Westchester [Forbes; our two cents] HUD embraces disparate-impact theory [Kevin Funnell, Arnold Kling]
- Why did the mortgage market collapse? [Foote et al via @tylercowen]
- Shorter Ta-Nehisi Coates: flaws of rent-to-own housing in ’50s Chicago prove US economic arrangements are a plot to immiserate blacks [The Atlantic] Yet Sinclair’s The Jungle, set 40 years before, showed very similar housing scams being played on Slavic newcomers.
- Minnesota high court dodges Fourth Amendment worries re: rental inspection program [Ilya Shapiro, Cato, link fixed now]
Posts Tagged ‘banks’
“Report: CFTC Exploring Bitcoin Regulation”
Too popular to last dept.: “The Commodities Futures Trading Commission is reportedly ‘seriously’ exploring whether volatile cyber currency Bitcoin may fall under the U.S. regulator’s purview.” [Matt Egan, Fox Business]
Banking and finance roundup
- “The Dodd-Frank Say-on-Pay Cases Are on the Brink of Death” [Kevin LaCroix]
- Kevin Funnell of Bank Lawyers Blog interviewed [Crystal Gimesh via BLB]
- How taxpayer lending props up business model of banks, fast-food franchisors [Dayton Daily News on SBA via Tad DeHaven]
- Independent currency = money laundering? “How Bitcoin Dies” [Econ Policy Journal] Or death by trial lawyer? [Coyote, Andrew Sullivan]
- Nose of the camel: Obama budget plans to limit IRAs to $3 million [Politico]
- How Swiss bank secrecy protected freedom [Daniel Fisher]
- Sure, what could go wrong? Obama push for more mortgage lending to borrowers with weaker credit [Gideon Kanner, Coyote] More: Arnold Kling testifies before Congress on housing finance, and feels a resulting “need to scream” [ASKBlog, more]
- More: Per NYT’s expert, “Shareholders have been demanding” disclosure on corporate political spending. Well, 18% of shareholders anyway [Jim Copland]
Banking and finance roundup
- After bank trespass, Occupy Philadelphia benefits from jury nullification and a cordial judge [Kevin Funnell]
- Cato commentaries on Cyprus crisis [Steve Hanke and more, Dan Mitchell, Richard Rahn podcast]
- “NY Court Reinstates Foreclosure, Chides Judge For `Robosigning’ Sanctions” [Daniel Fisher] “Impeding Foreclosure Hurts Homeowners As Well As Lenders” [Funnell]
- SEC charging Illinois with pension misrepresentation? Call it a stunt [Prof. Bainbridge]
- “Plaintiff Lawyers Seek Their Cut On Virtually All Big Mergers, Study Shows” [Fisher] As mergers draw suits, D&O underwriting scrutiny escalates [Funnell] “Courts beginning to reject M&A strike suits” [Ted Frank]
- Will Dodd-Frank conflict minerals rules actually help folks in places like Congo? [Marcia Narine, Regent U. L. Rev. via Bainbridge, earlier here]
- “Securities Lawyers Gave To Detroit Mayor’s Slush Fund”; city served as plaintiff for Bernstein Litowitz [Fisher]
Maryland roundup
- Legislature won’t pass dram shop liability, lawyers ask Maryland high court to do so instead [Frederick News-Post]
- In St. Mary’s County, new visitor rules for elementary schools ban hugging or giving homemade food to any but own kid [Southern Maryland News]
- Progress: Maryland Senate votes to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana [NBC Washington]
- If it’ll take $1 million for Somerset County (pop. 26,000) to cut stormwater nitrogen runoff by 145 pounds, how’s it going to manage to cut 37,000 pounds? [AP]
- “Fracking Moratorium Falls One Vote Short of Passing Key Senate Committee” [Chestertown Spy] “Bill was more about preventing fracking than studying it.” [@ToddEberly]
- Department of Truly Dreadful Ideas: Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez (D-Montgomery) continues to push bill to establish state-owned bank [Baltimore Business Journal]
- Website attacking Montgomery County’s Valerie Ervin has some union fingerprints [WaPo] Sen. Brinkley blasts union bill to make all Md. teachers pay agency fees [Maryland Reporter]
- Video interview with Hudson attorney George Ritchie on Waterkeeper v. Hudson Farm case [Center Maryland, earlier]
- Added: “Md. Senate votes to outlaw smoking in cars with young children as passengers” [WaPo just now]
Police and prosecution roundup
- “Once your life is inside a federal investigation, there is no space outside of it.” [Quinn Norton, The Atlantic]
- “Cops Detain 6-year-old for Walking Around Neighborhood (And It Gets Worse)” [Free-Range Kids] “Stop Criminalizing Parents who Let Their Kids Wait in the Car” [same]
- Time to rethink the continued erosion of statutes of limitations [Joel Cohen, Law.com; our post the other day on Gabelli v. SEC]
- “Are big-bank prosecutions following in the troubled footsteps of FCPA enforcement?” [Isaac Gorodetski, PoL]
- The “‘professional’ press approach to the criminal justice system serves police and prosecutors very well. They favor reporters who hew to it.” [Ken at Popehat]
- Scott Greenfield dissents from some common prescriptions on overcriminalization [Simple Justice]
- Anti-catnip educational video might be a parody [YouTube via Radley Balko]
- “Too Many Restrictions on Sex Offenders, or Too Few?” [NYT “Room for Debate”]
- Kyle Graham on overcharging [Non Curat Lex] “The Policeman’s Legal Digest / A Walk Through the Penal Laws of New York (1934)” [Graham, ConcurOp]
- “D.C. Council Proposes Pretty Decent Asset Forfeiture Reform” [John Ross, Reason] And the Institute for Justice reports on forfeiture controversies in Minnesota and Georgia.
- Does prison privatization entrench a pro-incarceration lobby? [Sasha Volokh, more]
EU to curb bankers’ pay?
Wait till you see how the market reacts, advises Marc Hodak [Hodak Value]
Banking and finance roundup
- David Henderson reviews Roger Donway book on Greg Reyes backdated-options prosecution [Econlog]
- Francis Menton on Argentina vs. creditors [Manhattan Contrarian via FedSoc Blog]
- New book, with co-author Lawrence Cunningham, gives Hank Greenberg’s side of the story on AIG [Concur Op, NY Post]
- Are Wall Street’s expert networks a violation of insider trading laws? [David Zaring, Conglomerate via Bainbridge]
- “A Brief Explanation Of The Economics Of Securities Lawsuits” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes] Related: Alison Frankel, Reuters [history of attempts at reform]
- What, a new bank? Yes, the proposed Bank of Bird-in-Hand [Kevin Funnell]
- Rules-based, low-discretion enforcement of Dodd-Frank? If only [Louise Bennetts (Cato), Jurist]
Banking and finance roundup
- But not before extracting $8.5 B: “Finding Little Evidence Of Foreclosure Fraud, Feds Give Up” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes; Kevin Funnell] Can Baltimore distinguish vindication from extortion? [Funnell]
- Dear grandstanders in Congress and press: by law AIG’s board had to consider request to join bailout suit [Bainbridge, John Carney]
- “Plaintiff Lawyers in Citigroup Case Seek Big Markup For Outside Attorneys” [Daniel Fisher, more, ABA Journal]
- “Everyone knows” CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) lending was too small in volume to be a major factor in bubble. Is everyone right? [NBER paper, SSRN via Cowen, Tuccille]
- Beware the CFPB’s Civil Investigative Demand (CID) power [Funnell, more]
- “Investor class action system needs review – judge” [Nate Raymond, Reuters]
- “Are the New Wave Say-on-Pay Lawsuits ‘Gaining Steam’?” [Kevin LaCroix]
December 31 roundup
- Congress acts to squelch bounty-hunting suits over lack of fee stickers on bank ATMs [Kevin Funnell, Alexander Cohen/Atlas Society, earlier here and here]
- Because I would not stop for Tax/He kindly stopped for me [John Carney on Dec. 31 death incentive]
- Having signed up six-year-old client, lawyer files $100 million claim in Sandy Hook massacre [CT News Junkie; another of Mr. Pinsky’s publicity-related endeavors]
- One list (among many) of the craziest US lawsuits of 2012 [Samantha Rollins, The Week]
- “Sue to silence the NRA? Wind up paying its legal fees, more likely.” [@andrewmgrossman on this diary of a (would-be) speech-suppressing litigant] When some politicians aren’t bashing gunmakers, they’re shoveling money at them [Matt Welch on New York; my Reason piece a way back on Connecticut] “Should People Be Forced To Buy Liability Insurance For Their Guns?” [Megan McArdle]
- Also re: Newtown, “Laws made in the shadow of tragedy normally look odd to the healed mind.” [Tom Coale, HoCo Rising] And Radley Balko last year, via @amyalkon, on why “Laws named after crime victims and dead people are usually a bad idea.” [HuffPo]
- Could ubiquity of cellphones help explain plunge in crime rate? [ABA Journal on study by Klick et al]