In-house counsel faced with a data breach encounter a difficult balancing act. On the one hand, it is critical to determine the cause of the breach and generate a plan to bolster security systems to reduce the likelihood of similar occurrences in the future. On the other hand, these same reports, usually performed by third-party
In a ruling that will provide guidance on when lenders must raise a foreclosure counterclaim in a borrower lawsuit, the South Carolina Court of Appeals in Deutsche Bank National Trust Company v. Estate of Patricia Ann Owens Houck has held that foreclosure was not a compulsory counterclaim in a borrower’s suit alleging errors in origination.
The Eleventh Circuit’s far-reaching decision in Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services, Inc. — which we previously covered on this blog — continues to raise questions for the wide range of industries that fall within the FDCPA’s definition of “debt collectors.” To put it briefly, the Eleventh Circuit held that a debt collector violates
On April 21, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a decision that threatens significant consequences for a variety of loan servicing and debt collection industries. The upshot of the court’s holding is that anyone falling within the FDCPA’s broad definition of “debt collector” violates the FDCPA when it communicates with
On February 18, 2021, the New York Court of Appeals’ consolidated resolution of four cases that answered two critical questions concerning the application of the statute of limitations in New York mortgage foreclosure actions: What constitutes a valid acceleration such that the six-year “clock” is started and what actions constitute a valid “de-acceleration” of a
On March 3, 2021, the CFPB filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against BrightSpeed Solutions, Inc., a third-party payment processor, and Kevin Howard, BrightSpeed’s founder and former chief executive officer. In its complaint, the CFPB alleges that between 2016 and 2018, Howard and BrightSpeed knew or
Few industries promise rapid growth equal to that of the cannabis industry, with one study projecting the industry could reach $30 billion in annual sales by 2025. This growth continues to accelerate as more states legalize cannabis for medical or adult use. But until federal cannabis laws are reformed, the illegality of cannabis at
In the latest instance of courts interpreting the Supreme Court’s landmark False Claims Act ruling in Universal Health Services, Inc. v. Escobar, the Eleventh Circuit recently departed from the trend of giving great weight in the analysis of whether a violation was material to the fact that the government continued payment, finding that other
For the past few years, the federal circuit courts have struggled with the issue of whether a creditor retaining possession of bankruptcy estate property violates the automatic stay. For example, is a creditor required to automatically turn over a vehicle as soon as the bankruptcy petition is filed, or can the creditor retain possession of
Oh what a year it has been in the mortgage servicing world! In 2020, our COVID-19 Compliance Roundtable met weekly to discuss emerging compliance issues under the CARES Act, federal agency guidance, state laws and orders, and the many operational hurdles regarding residential mortgage loans that servicers are facing. We’ve summarized the key trends and