Bill aims to ban harmful tactic of lenders
Legislation has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to ban a legal tactic that predatory lenders use to seize money from small businesses, matching a bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate earlier this month.
The legislation by Reps. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., and Roger Marshall, R-Kan., would ban confessions of judgment, legal documents that many financial firms offering quick money require customers to sign to get loans. By signing, the borrowers forfeit their right to defend themselves in court, allowing lenders to seize their assets before they know what happened.
"This legal loophole has fueled an entire cottage industry of con artists and scammers who profit by exploiting hardworking entrepreneurs and ruining the lives of cash-strapped small business owners," Velazquez, the incoming chairman of the House Small Business Committee, said in a statement.
The bill was introduced after a series of articles by Bloomberg News about how lenders are using confessions to squeeze small-business owners. In dozens of interviews and court pleadings, borrowers described lenders who forged documents, lied about how much they were owed or fabricated defaults out of thin air. The borrowers said the consequences were drastic and they had no way to fight back.
The House bill, called the Small Business Lending Fairness Act, mirrors one introduced earlier this month by Sens. Sherrod Brown, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
-- Bloomberg News
Sanctions deal set for Russian company
President Donald Trump's administration is ready to remove sanctions on Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska's aluminum company, United Co. Rusal, after reaching an agreement with Deripaska to significantly reduce his ownership stake.
Deripaska will remain under U.S. sanctions and his property will remain blocked, but the Treasury Department intends to remove financial restrictions on Rusal, En+ Group PLC and JSC EuroSibEnergo. The move will take effect in 30 days unless Congress blocks the action, the Treasury Department said in a statement Wednesday.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin highlighted the fact that Deripaska, not the companies, was the intended target of U.S. sanctions imposed in April on associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin over Moscow's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The announcement came on the same day the Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on 15 Russian military intelligence operatives over the U.S. election meddling, as well as the attempted assassination of a former double agent in the U.K. One former intelligence officer was accused of working for Deripaska.
-- Bloomberg News
Consumer bureau abandons name change
NEW YORK -- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has decided to abandon a controversial renaming plan, in one of the first big decisions by its new permanent director.
The bureau no longer wants to call itself the "Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection," a change that had been sought by Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump's acting director of the bureau. The decision was announced in an email by new director Kathy Kraninger on Wednesday, who took over earlier this month.
The bureau was created by the Dodd-Frank Act, the law that rewrote the rules governing the banking and financial system after the 2008 financial crisis. The bureau was called the "Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection" in the law, but has never referred to itself that way. Mulvaney argued the renaming was just following the letter of the law.
Kraninger's email was published by Allied Progress, a left-leaning advocacy group that has opposed changes the Trump administration has made at the bureau. Many consumer groups and allies of the bureau in Congress argued the name change was unnecessary and purely political.
-- The Associated Press
$480M Wells Fargo settlement finalized
A federal judge in San Francisco has given final approval to a $480 million deal that settles a shareholder class-action suit against Wells Fargo over the bank's unauthorized accounts scandal.
The deal, reached in May and given preliminary approval in September, would compensate Wells Fargo shareholders for losses they incurred after the bank's 2016 admission that employees might have created millions of unauthorized accounts.
The settlement will pay shareholders who bought Wells Fargo stock between Feb. 26, 2014, and Sept. 20, 2016. During that period, Wells Fargo shares traded for as much as $53, but later sank as low as $41.
The San Francisco finance giant will pay $480 million, nearly $96 million of which in fees and expenses will go to the attorneys who worked on the case. If all eligible shareholders participate in the settlement, the payout would amount to 35 cents per share.
Shareholders, including lead plaintiff Union Asset Management, sued for securities fraud in 2016, alleging that Wells Fargo executives had improperly inflated the company's stock price by touting the bank's prowess at so-called cross-selling -- getting customers to sign up for numerous accounts and services.
The bank's focus on cross-selling was later blamed for the aggressive sales quotas that pushed thousands of workers to open accounts without customers' authorization.
-- Los Angeles Times
Ban on single-use plastic advances in EU
BERLIN -- The 28-nation European Union moved closer to banning single-use straws, plates, cutlery and cotton swabs, after officials from EU member states and the European Parliament on Wednesday backed recommendations by its executive branch designed to reduce marine pollution.
Environmental campaigners have been calling for curbs on throwaway plastic that's accumulating in the oceans because, unlike organic materials, it doesn't decompose but simply breaks down into ever smaller pieces.
Scientific studies have found minuscule particles known as microplastics are being consumed by animals throughout the food chain, though the effect on human health is unclear.
"When we have a situation where one year you can bring your fish home in a plastic bag, and the next year you are bringing that bag home in a fish, we have to work hard and work fast," said Karmenu Vella, the European commissioner for environment, maritime affairs and fisheries.
-- The Associated Press
Business on 12/20/2018
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