A growing consensus is emerging among legal experts that someone will challenge in court President Obama’s contentious recess appointment of Richard Cordray as the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But a final outcome could take years and have no impact on the agency’s actions while the case is unfolding. “These appointments establish a dangerous precedent that threatens the confirmation process and undermines the system of checks and balances embedded in the Constitution,” a number of House Republicans said in a letter they fired off to the president after he made his...

President Obama this week moved to break a GOP blockade in the Senate by making a recess appointment of Richard Cordray to become director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a political maneuver that defies 20 years of precedent and may set the stage for a legal challenge. The Obama administration claimed that it is fully within its Constitutional authority to place the new director into his position, dismissing as a gimmick the pro-forma sessions Republicans used to block the nomination. A number of consumer groups came out in support of the appointment. The president’s allies in Congress were...

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB Now Accepting Mortgage Complaints. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau began accepting mortgage complaints from consumers through its websitefs home page, as of Dec. 1, 2011. To file a complaint, a consumer has to describe what happened and what would be a fair resolution. The consumer is presented with a menu of options and has to specify the type of mortgage involved (conventional fixed-rate, FHA, etc.) as well as the part of the mortgage process involved that is the source of the complaint. Once the complaint is filed, the relevant company will be notified, and the consumer will be provided a tracking number.

Reform of the government-sponsored enterprises is seen as an essential step toward the widespread resumption of non-agency securitization. However, industry analysts suggest that significant action on GSE reform will not begin until after the November 2012 elections. “We are still nowhere close to any legislation that has a realistic possibility of even being enacted,” said Lawrence White, a professor of economics at New York University, at a seminar this week hosted by the American Securitization Forum. “The can will continue to get kicked down the road until after November 2012.” ...

Non-bank servicers have received a reprieve from scrutiny by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau due to a heated political fight in Congress. Despite a major push last week by the Obama administration, Senate Republicans blocked an attempted vote to confirm former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray as director of the CFPB. Last week, the Senate voted 53-45 on a motion to consider Cordray as director of the CFPB. At least 60 votes were needed to end a Republican filibuster. Scott Brown, R-MA, was the only Republican to vote in favor of the motion ...

Federal financial regulators are still sifting through stacks of criticism about their controversial risk-retention proposal for the MBS and ABS market and have not yet decided whether to start over again with a new proposed rule, as most industry groups have urged them to do. The agencies are also getting a lot of push from Capitol Hill to re-think the original proposal, which was released in late March. “I am very concerned that if the qualified residential mortgage definition being worked out by regulators isn’t broad enough, it could hurt the housing market, especially...

The proposal drafted by a senior House Republican that aims to lure private capital into the secondary mortgage market received the general support of industry witnesses at a hearing this week, but Democratic lawmakers say repealing key features of the Dodd-Frank Act would be a non-starter. The Private Mortgage Market Investment Act, drafted but not yet filed by Rep. Scott Garrett, R-NJ., would create a heavily regulated mortgage-backed securities market made up solely of private entities that would function with no federal guarantee at all. Under the bill, the Federal Housing...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking public input on its plans to collect information about legal actions filed by state officials under authority granted in Section 1042(a) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This section of the law grants state attorneys general and state regulators the authority to bring legal actions against financial institutions to enforce provisions of Title X of Dodd-Frank and its implementing regulations. Back in July, the CFPB put out an interim final rule laying out the notification procedures regarding state legal action taken. The interim final rule establishes that notice should be provided at least 10 days before the filing of an action, with certain exceptions, and sets forth a limited set of information which is to be provided with the notice.

The House Financial Services Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee plans a hearing on Tuesday, Dec. 6, on the examination relief bill (H.R. 3461) that panel Chairman Shelley Moore Capito, R-WV, and ranking member Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, introduced on Nov. 17. H.R. 3461, among other things, would require more timely examination reports; more information about the facts the agency relied upon to make its exam decisions; and more precise, consistent and understandable classification standards…