The Bureau of Economic Analysis has been actively expanding the scope of its mandatory surveys of U.S. and foreign companies and investors to cover many industries and companies that may not have had to report previously, reports Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

These surveys often are announced with little fanfare, but they can involve significant time and expense for affected companies and may lead to substantial civil and criminal penalties for those who fail to comply.

“Given the penalties and reporting burdens involved, these BEA surveys should be on the radar of every general counsel,” the report says. “This article provides an outline of key points that general counsels should be aware of to protect their companies from liability and the steps companies can take to reduce or eliminate their compliance burden, including by engaging directly with BEA officials and advisory groups.

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The New York Times is reporting that a long-running investigation into Wall Street’s manipulation of interest rates could soon result in Deutsche Bank paying a record penalty and accepting a criminal guilty plea for the unit at the center of the case.

“Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest financial institution and one of several banks linked to the gaming of interest rates, is in talks to resolve the case as soon as this month, according to people briefed on the matter,” the report says. “A deal — which involves federal prosecutors as well as New York State’s financial regulator and regulators in London and Washington — would be one of the last cases to arise from the sweeping investigation into the London interbank offered rate, or Libor.”

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A recent enforcement action by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissionagainst KBR serves as a warning to companies that efforts to silence potential whistleblowers through restrictive confidentiality agreements will not be tolerated, report two Dechert LLP lawyers.

The action aims to protect employees from signing confidentiality agreements that would prevent them from acting as whistleblowers. On April 1, 2015, the SEC announced a settlement with KBR, Inc. in which KBR will pay a $130,000 civil penalty and agreed to cease and desist from any future violations of SEC Rules, while not admitting or denying the SEC’s charges.

“As the first enforcement action of its kind, the SEC has taken an aggressive stance against KBR, one of the country’s largest government contractors.” write Nicolle Jacoby and Jamie Hacker.

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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has announced an enforcement action against a nationwide debt collection operation and its chief executive officer for allegedly using deceptive threats of criminal prosecution and jail time in order to intimidate consumers into paying debts for bounced checks, reports the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The company also misled consumers into believing that they must enroll in a costly financial education program to avoid criminal charges, according to the action.

“The proposed order, if approved by a federal district court, would put an end to the illegal activities, impose a civil money penalty of $50,000, and require new consumer disclosures and stronger oversight of the bounced check program,” the CFPB reports.

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Two Cozen O’Connor lawyers discuss in a white paper the waiver policies of U.S. federal enforcement agencies overseeing the financial services industry, including the U.S .Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, as well as certain others.

Linda Riefberg, a member of Cozen O’Connor’s Commercial Litigation Department, and Christopher Passavia, an associate in the Commercial Litigation Department, are the authors of the paper, which was published in Journal of Securities Operations & Custody.

The article provides some guidance to parties and counsel regarding when waiver may be necessary or advisable and concludes with support for a uniform standard that is protective of the attorney-client and work product privileges, permitting the privilege holder to make a true choice as to whether to waive, free from any obligation or pressure to waive from U.S. agencies, the firm says on its website.

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Solar Power World offers a free one-hour on-demand webinar on financing small commercial and residential projects through smaller, less institutional funding organizations.

Panelists for the event were drawn from some of the most innovative funding organizations in the country, the provider says.

The include:

-Scott Pellegrini, AVP of  Consumer Lending, Provident Credit Union
-Scott Wiater, President, Standard Solar
-Jeff Cowherd, Senior Vice President, First Green Bank
-Scott Hawkins, Chief Financial Officer, Technology Credit Corporation
-Mike McGuire, Co-Founder, Wiser Capital

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Marsh USA offers a free on-demand webinar in which a panel of risk experts provide real-world examples of deal issues and how the insurance market can be accessed to solve them.

The topics include representations and warranties, tax and indemnity insurance, contingent liability insurance, political risk insurance for private equity investments in emerging markets, non-payment coverage for commercial contracts or debt transactions, kKey life and disability policies, environmental insurance, and environmental liability buyouts.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Reuters is reporting that Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. has agreed to pay $84 million to settle a lawsuit claiming that it illegally reduced potential payouts on annuities it sold at least 30 years ago, cheating investors who used them as retirement investments.

The settlement , announced in a Milwaukee federal court, covers about 4,000 current and 29,000 former owners of the annuities pursuing a class action.

“They claimed Northwestern Mutual breached its contractual obligations when in 1985 it quietly changed how it calculated dividends on deferred, fixed annuities it had sold, costing them millions of dollars annually,” the report says.

As investment firms including UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Deutsche Bank AG have curtailed or shuttered lines of business, particularly in debt trading, the contractions have prompted former bankers to quit finance and put their experience to use in the new field of financial technology, or fintech, reports BloombergBusiness.

“Capitalizing on the changing regulatory environment, such companies offer risk management, data analytics, trading platforms and other services often previously performed by humans,” the story says

Bloomberg points out that North America had 212,100 fewer bond brokering jobs and other roles defined by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as credit intermediation in January, versus the start of 2008, according to the latest data available.

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Sirius Solutions presents a free white paper exploring several key issues commonly faced in the valuation and financial reporting of oil and gas property acquisitions.

The paper is written by Sirius Solutions’ John Lehman, Financial Advisory Services Director.

“The complexity of oil and gas property acquisitions has increased due to constantly changing positions on appropriate valuation techniques, methodologies and regulatory requirements,” the company says on its website. “Sirius Solutions knows financial executives like yourself in the oil and gas industry are under pressure to complete the preliminary financial reporting of property acquisitions as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

Download the white paper.

The Obama administration had the authority to make a 180-degree shift in labor policy and declare thousands of mortgage loan officers subject to wage-and-hour laws, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, according to a report by Forbes.

In concurrences, the court’s most conservative justices complains that such deference to regulatory agencies threatens the constitutional balance of powers.

“The high court, in Perez vs. Mortgage Bankers Association, unanimously upheld the Labor Department’s 2010 determination that mortgage loan officers were mere salespeople, not administrators, and therefore entitled to a 40-hour work week and overtime wages.” Forbes says. “That was a reversal of the same agency’s 2006 decision that loan officers weren’t entitled to overtime. But the court ruled the Administrative Procedure Act governing how agencies promulgate rules and regulations clearly allows them to issue “interpretive rules” without going through the lengthy notice-and-comment procedure required for regulations that have the effect of law.”

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The Department of Justice’s U.S. Trustee Program (USTP) has entered into a national settlement agreement with JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. (Chase) requiring Chase to pay more than $50 million, including cash payments, mortgage loan credits and loan forgiveness, to over 25,000 homeowners who are or were in bankruptcy. Chase will also change internal operations and submit to oversight by an independent compliance reviewer.  The proposed settlement has been filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, where it is subject to court approval.

In the proposed settlement, Chase acknowledges that it filed in bankruptcy courts around the country more than 50,000 payment change notices that were improperly signed, under penalty of perjury, by persons who had not reviewed the accuracy of the notices.  More than 25,000 notices were signed in the names of former employees or of employees who had nothing to do with reviewing the accuracy of the filings.  The rest of the notices were signed by individuals employed by a third party vendor on matters unrelated to checking the accuracy of the filings.

Chase also acknowledges that it failed to file timely, accurate notices of mortgage payment changes and failed to provide timely, accurate escrow statements.

“It is shocking that the conduct admitted to by Chase in this settlement, including the filing of tens of thousands of documents in court that never had been reviewed by the people who attested to their accuracy, continued as long as it did,” said Acting Associate Attorney General Stuart F. Delery.  “Such unlawful and abusive banking practices can deprive American homeowners of a fair chance in the bankruptcy system, and we will not tolerate them.”

“This settlement should signal once again to banks and mortgage servicers that they cannot continue to flout legal requirements, compromise the integrity of the bankruptcy system and abuse their customers in financial distress,” said Director Cliff White of the U.S. Trustee Program.  “It should be acknowledged that Chase responded to the U.S. Trustee’s court actions by conducting an internal investigation and taking steps to mitigate harm to homeowners.  But years after uncovering improper mortgage servicing practices and entering into court-ordered settlements to fix flawed systems, it is deeply disturbing that a major bank would still make improper court filings and fail to provide adequate and timely notices to homeowners about payments due.  Other servicers should take note that the U.S. Trustee Program will continue to police their practices and will work to ensure that those who do not comply with bankruptcy law protections for homeowners will pay a price, just as Chase has done in this matter.”

Payments, Credits and Contributions of More Than $50 Million:

In the proposed settlement, Chase agrees to provide payments, credits and contributions totaling more than $50 million:

• Chase will provide $22.4 million in credits and second lien forgiveness to about 400 homeowners who received inaccurate payment increase notices during their bankruptcy cases.
• Chase will pay $10.8 million to more than 12,000 homeowners in bankruptcy through credits or refunds for payment increases or decreases that were not timely filed in bankruptcy court and noticed to the homeowners.
• Chase will pay $4.8 million to more than 18,000 homeowners who did not receive accurate and timely escrow statements.  This includes credits for taxes and insurance owed by the homeowners and paid by Chase during periods covered by escrow statements that were not timely filed and transmitted to homeowners.
• Chase will pay $4.9 million, through payment of approximately $600 per loan, to more than 8,000 homeowners whose escrow payments Chase may have applied in a manner inconsistent with escrow statements it provided to the homeowners.
• Chase will contribute $7.5 million to the American Bankruptcy Institute’s endowment for financial education and support for the Credit Abuse Resistance Education Program.

Changes to Internal Operations: In the proposed settlement Chase also agrees to make necessary changes to its technology, policies, procedures, internal controls and other oversight systems to ensure that the problems identified in the settlement do not recur.

Oversight by Independent Reviewer: Amy Walsh, a partner with the law firm Morvillo LLP, has been selected to serve as independent reviewer to verify that Chase complies with the settlement order.  The independent reviewer will file public reports with the bankruptcy court.

No Effect on Additional Relief by Homeowners: This settlement does not affect the rights of any homeowners to seek any relief against Chase that they may deem appropriate.

Chase Contact Information: Homeowners with questions about the settlement may contact Chase at 866-451-2327.

The settlement is the culmination of actions taken by the U.S. Trustee Program in districts around the country concerning Chase’s improper practices in bankruptcy cases, including robo-signing.  Director White commended the U.S. Trustee Program team in the field and headquarters who expertly identified, investigated, litigated and settled this matter, including Deputy Director and General Counsel Ramona Elliott, National Creditor Enforcement Coordinator Gail Geiger and Trial Attorneys Diarmuid Gorham and Kelley Callard.

The U.S. Trustee Program is the component of the Justice Department that protects the integrity of the bankruptcy system by overseeing case administration and litigating to enforce the bankruptcy laws.  The U.S. Trustee Program has 21 regions and 93 field office locations.

Reuters is reporting that Kevin McKay, who began his Wall Street legal career in 1978 at E.F. Hutton, will join Barclays PLC’s wealth and investment management division in the Americas next month as general counsel, a company spokeswoman said.

For the past 12 years McKay was general counsel of Dominick & Dominick, a New York City broker-dealer with fewer than 50 brokers that was purchased in January by Memphis, Tennessee-based Wunderlich Securities, according to the Reuters report.

He was briefly chief executive of the New York-based firm before the deal, and retained the general counsel title at Wunderlich.

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Deutsche Bank AG has named Steven F. Reich, a former official at the U.S. Department of Justice and attorney for former President Bill Clinton, as its general counsel for the Americas.

Reich was a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in New York. He will join the bank in April, reporting to Deputy General Counsels Simon Dodds in London and Christof von Dryander in Frankfurt, according to Michele Allison, a spokeswoman for the bank.

His move, reported by The New York Times, comes at a critical time as the company faces criminal and civil investigations into interest rate manipulation and currency rigging.

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JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to pay $99.5 million to settle its portion of an antitrust lawsuit in which investors accuse 12 major banks of rigging prices in the $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market, reports Reuters.

The settlement is the first in the nationwide litigation and resolved claims over JPMorgan’s role in alleged collusion among banks since January 2003 to manipulate the WM/Reuters Closing Spot Rates, known as the Fix.

Investors including hedge funds, pension funds and the city of Philadelphia accused the 12 banks, which controlled 84 percent of the global currency trading market, of having impeded competition by conspiring to manipulate the Fix in chat rooms, instant messages and emails.

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Wells Fargo & Co. recently snagged two former Bank of America Corp. high-ranking lawyers to fill openings in its litigation and workout division, the bank confirmed, reports The Wall Street Journal‘s Moneybeat blog.

Craig Baldauf, a former Bank of American interim director of litigation and regulatory investigations, plans to join Wells Fargo on Feb. 23 as a deputy general counsel, the San Francisco-based lender said. He most recently served as head of global litigation for Toronto-based TD Bank Group, after leaving Bank of America in 2011.

Bob McGahan, former associate general counsel of litigation and regulatory inquiries at Bank of America, joined Wells Fargo Jan. 20 as an assistant general counsel.

Moneybeat says both will work on litigation and regulatory matters across the bank.

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Clean Energy Group and Croatan Institute have posted an on-demand webinar on the first comprehensive study of U.S. institutional investors’ appetite for green bonds.

On the Clean Energy States Alliance site, the organization says the study, “What Investors Want: How to Scale-Up Demand for US Clean Energy and Green Bonds,” provides a blueprint for growing the market for fixed-income securities to finance clean energy projects and solve climate problems.

In this webinar, guest speakers from Clean Energy Group and Croatan Institute discuss their findings.

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 20 declined to take up a challenge by retailers to the Federal Reserve’s controversial rules for debit card “swipe fees,” according to a Reuters report.

Businesses pay the fees to banks when customers use debit cards to purchase goods or services. The fees reimburse banks for costs involved in offering debit cards.

Reuters says the high court’s rejection of the appeal means a March 2014 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that upheld the rules stays intact.

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MetLife Inc., the U.S. life insurer deemed by regulators as too big to fail, engages in in practices that threaten national economic health, according to a lawsuit filed by a policyholder, reports Bloomberg News.

MetLife, the biggest U.S. life insurer by assets, made misleading statements about its financial condition and overstated the amount of reserves it maintains to absorb unexpected losses or financial shocks, according to a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court by policyholder Andrew Yale.

MetLife “is engaging in conduct that imperils the financial future of Metropolitan Life’s policyholders, their beneficiaries, and the public at large,” Yale said in his complaint.

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Ex-employees are leaving behind orphan 401(k) accounts with abandon, and employers are dumping the funds into forced Individual Retirement Accounts with conservative default investments and high fees, where they whittle down to nothing, according to a new Government Accountability Office Report, 401(K) Plans: Greater Protections Needed for Forced Transfers and Inactive Accounts.

Forbes reports that , at one IRA provider the GAO studied, an unclaimed $1,000 account would be reduced to zero in just 9 years (to blame: a $50 one-time account set-up fee, a $50 annual fee, and a $65 annual address search fee, combined with an 0.11 percent investment return).

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