A natural experiment: Virginia law allows foreclosures to happen rapidly, Maryland law delays them. Which state has bounced back more smartly from the housing crash? [Michael Schearer, earlier, related (couple spends five years in million-dollar Maryland home without making mortgage payment), update (more links in roundup: Maryland “hobbled by nation’s slowest foreclosure process”]
Posts Tagged ‘mortgages’
Banking and finance roundup
- After bank burglarizes Ohio woman, law will give her curiously little satisfaction [Popehat]
- North Las Vegas scheme to seize underwater mortgages through eminent domain raises constitutional opposition [Kevin Funnell]
- “The SAC Insider Trading Indictment” [Bainbridge, WSJ MoneyBeat]
- “He who sells what isn’t his’n/Must buy it back or go to prison.” Most naked short selling driven by fundamentals, study says [Daniel Fisher]
- NY AG Schneiderman to Thomson Reuters: don’t you dare sell early access to the market-moving survey you pay for [Bainbridge]
- “The Confidential Witness Problem in Securities Litigation” [Kevin LaCroix]
- “The puzzling return of Glass-Steagall” [Tabarrok]
- “FATCA: How to Lose Friends, Citizens and Influence” [Colleen Graffy, WSJ via Paul Caron/TaxProf, earlier]
Banking and finance roundup
- Employer mandate not the only impractical reg being postponed: “IRS Delays Implementation of FATCA” [Paul Caron; earlier]
- Foreign banks whipsawed betwen U.S. terrorism-finance liability and privacy laws in home countries [Daniel Fisher]
- “NY Fed Official: Let’s ‘Facilitate’ The Seizure Of Underwater Loans” [Kevin Funnell]
- “If anything, the data suggest [home] ownership … inversely correlated with political stability and rule of law.” [Michael Greve]
- Revisiting the Randy and Karen Sowers structuring case [Kathleen Hunker, Bell Towers; earlier]
- “Can we improve payday lending?” [Andrew Sullivan]
- When if ever should the SEC pay bounties to attorneys to snitch on their clients? [Prof. Bainbridge]
Ethics roundup
- “Robo-litigation”: ethical issues of the mass-foreclosure mess [Dustin Zachs, SSRN, via Legal Ethics Forum]
- Roger Parloff on Chevron counterclaims against Patton Boggs [Fortune] “Judge Grudgingly Lets Donziger’s Lawyers Out Of Chevron Case” [Daniel Fisher; Reuters]
- Should Australia dilute or abolish the “cab rank” rule? [John Flood via LEF]
- “Ethical Limits on Civil Litigation Advocacy: A Historical Perspective” [Carol Andrews (Alabama), SSRN; Legal Ethics Forum]
- “When Is a Demand Letter (Arguably) Extortion?” [John Steele, more, ABA Journal (Martin Singer demand letter threatening to expose target’s sexual indiscretions]
- Fifth Circuit denies Dickie Scruggs’s latest appeal [YallPolitics]
- When crowdfunding meets litigation finance, watch out world [Richard Painter]
- “Judge Orders Prenda Law Group Beamed Out Into Space” [Lowering the Bar, TechDirt]
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]
Feds’ case against Standard & Poor’s
John Carney, Daniel Fisher (more), Ira Stoll, David Henderson, and Jonathan Weil have some questions about it.
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]
Banking and finance roundup
- FATCA: “Another American Turns in Passport to Protest Idiotic New Banking Regulations” [Matt Welch, earlier]
- Cato president John Allison discusses his new book “The Financial Crisis and the Free-Market Cure” [video, earlier; John Tamny, Forbes]
- “The Unintended Consequences of Cracking Down on Payday Lenders” [A. Barton Hinkle, earlier]
- Trial lawyers’ uses for “say on pay” [Bainbridge] Suits after mergers [Kevin LaCroix on Boris Feldman article]
- Massachusetts law restricting foreclosures is likely to backfire [Anthony Randazzo] “Foreclose on state AGs” [Michael Greve, Law and Liberty]
- ACLU (ACLU?) sues Morgan Stanley over allegedly predatory loans [Althouse] Suing Wells Fargo twice is not very nice [Reynolds Holding, Reuters]
- “More evidence that Dodd-Frank is hurting small banks” [Ammon Simon, earlier]
Great moments in financial employment regulation
Thanks to new federal banking and mortgage guidelines with $1-million-a-day penalties for noncompliance, banks are scrambling to fire any employee who has previously been convicted of a crime involving dishonesty. Among those tossed out: a bank employee with seven years’ service who used a slug in a washing machine in 1963, and a 58-year-old customer service representative with a shoplifting conviction forty years ago. A lawyer says thousands of employees have been fired under the new rules. [Des Moines Register/USA Today via ABA Journal]