The law firm of Troutman Sanders LLP announced today the creation of a Financial Crimes and Securities Fraud Team to help counsel clients on a new nationwide government task force focused on combating white-collar crime.   [Read more →]

Federal agencies have targeted banks and holding companies for deficient financial reporting over the last several years, but the stakes got higher when the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia established a new task force targeting financial crimes and securities fraud. As reported in The Wall Street Journal on Friday, May 14, the goal of this nation-wide, multi-agency task force is to focus on white collar crime – and to target high profile cases – using an investigative task force of federal, state, and local entities to crack down on financial crime and securities fraud. [Read more →]

Financial Markets Regulatory Wire
January 27, 2010

Atlanta partner and head of the firm’s Office & Industrial Real Estate practice group Mark Elliott was quoted extensively in an online January 27 Financial Markets Regulatory Wire transcript of the committee hearing held at Georgia Tech by the Congressional Oversight Panel to Oversee the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). [Read more →]

On February 10, 2010, the Congressional Oversight Panel released its much-anticipated report regarding “Commercial Real Estate Losses and the Risk to Financial Stability.” In the report, the Panel expressed its deep concerns that a wave of commercial real estate failures could threaten America’s already-weakened financial system and that “[c]ommercial loan losses could jeopardize the stability of many banks, particularly the nation’s mid-size and smaller banks.” [Read more →]

On February 2, 2010, President Obama announced a proposal (the Proposal) to establish a new Small Business Lending Fund (the SBLF) to encourage and facilitate increased lending by community banks to small businesses.  As proposed, the SBLF would offer up to $30 billion for equity investments in community banks, which are defined as banks with assets under $10 billion. The SBLF would be separate and distinct from the Treasury’s TARP program but would be funded with $30 billion of repaid TARP capital.  [Read more →]

On January 12, 2010, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (the Proposal) inviting comment on whether the FDIC should charge higher deposit insurance premiums for institutions with compensation plans that encourage excessive risk taking.  At issue are compensation structures that fail to align incentives of individual employees with other stakeholders – namely shareholders and the FDIC.  The Proposal states the FDIC’s position that excessive risk taking by employees remains a contributing factor in financial institution failures and losses to the FDIC insurance fund. [Read more →]

The National Association of Attorneys General (“NAAG”) has recently created a unique State-Federal Task Force on Mortgage Enforcement (“Task Force”). The Task Force is co-chaired by Attorney General Rob McKenna (R-WA) and Attorney General Tom Miller (D-IA) and includes twenty-two Attorneys General. Of these Attorneys General, seventeen are Democrats and five are Republicans. [Read more →]

On December 3, 2009, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision conducted a telephone seminar that provided additional guidance on the Policy Statement on Prudent Commercial Real Estate Loan Workouts, released on October 30, 2009 (Workout Guidance) and responded to questions submitted by financial institutions.  The regulatory agencies reiterated their intent to encourage prudent CRE loan workouts and reaffirmed that lenders will not be subject to criticism for prudently structuring CRE loan workouts, even if the new loans are impaired.  [Read more →]

On October 30, 2009, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, in coordination with other federal bank regulatory agencies, released guidelines on prudent commercial real estate loan workouts.  The guidelines update and replace existing supervisory guidance on the impact of workouts on loan classifications and required loan loss revenues.  The guidelines are intended to “promote supervisory consistency, enhance the transparency of commercial real estate loan workouts and ensure that supervisory policies and actions do not inadvertently curtail the availability of credit to sound borrowers.”  Finally, the guidelines set forth a range of workout scenarios to demonstrate the examiner’s analytical review process under these guidelines. [Read more →]

On October 22, 2009, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) released proposed incentive compensation guidelines that would apply to all banking organizations under the Federal Reserve’s supervision. These guidelines aim to ensure that banking organizations’ compensation policies and practices do not encourage excessive risk-taking and undermine the soundness of the banking organization. [Read more →]