Archive

November 15, 2023

Online lender Enova International Inc. has been ordered to pay $15 million and is prohibited from offering certain consumer loans for seven years, after the CFPB found it guilty of violating a 2019 order to cease and desist from widespread illegal conduct, including withdrawing funds from consumer bank accounts without their consent, backtracking on loan extensions, failing to provide crucial information such as due dates, and failing to provide consumer copies of signed authorizations.  In addition to the new penalties, Enova has been ordered to provide redress to consumers harmed and tie executive compensation with the company’s compliance with consumer protection laws.  CFPB

November 2, 2023

Royal Bank of Canada has agreed to pay a $6 million civil penalty to the SEC to settle charges of violating the internal accounting controls and books and records provisions of the Securities Exchange Act.  Between 2008 and 2020, the firm failed to properly account for the costs of internally developed software.  Because it was unable to differentiate between capitalizable and noncapitalizable costs, the bank applied a single capitalization rate year after year without sufficient basis.  SEC

October 23, 2023

Ceres Global Ag Corp. has been ordered to pay $3 million to settle charges of attempting to manipulate the price of oats futures contracts in 2016 and 2017.  According to the CFTC, a former senior official directed employees to manipulate its short position in order to affect the futures price.  CFTC

October 18, 2023

For-profit Sollers College, its parent company, Sollers Inc., and its founder and president Siba Padhi have been ordered to cancel $3.4 million in student debt and pay $1.2 million in civil penalties for misrepresenting its job placements rates and relationships with prominent companies in order to lure students to the school.  Since 2018, Sollers claimed that 90% of its graduates were placed in jobs within 3 months of graduation, when in reality the number was as low as 52%.  Sollers also encouraged students into paying tuition with illegal income-sharing agreements, wherein students would pay the school a fixed percentage of their future income for about two years.  Nearly 400 students nationwide were affected by this misconduct, with more than 60 of them being residents of New Jersey.  NJ AG; FTC

October 18, 2023

The president of a California-based medical technology company has been sentenced to 8 years in prison and ordered to pay $24 million in restitution in the first COVID-related criminal securities fraud case charged by DOJ and the first COVID-related criminal healthcare fraud case brought to trial.  Among many things, Mark Schena of Arrayit Corporation was found to have taken advantage of the pandemic by claiming he and his company had developed a technology to test for just about any disease, including COVID, using a single drop of blood.  In doing so, Schena and Arrayit lied to investors to give them a false sense of credibility, paid illegal kickbacks to marketers to run deceptive plans about the accuracy of its tests, and submitted false claims to Medicare and private insurers for medically unnecessary allergy testing.  DOJ

October 17, 2023

Fintech company Chime Inc., d/b/a Sendwave, has been ordered to pay $1.5 million in fees and a $1.5 million penalty to the CFPB’s victim relief fund for violations of the CFPB’s Remittance Transfer Rule and the Electronic Fund Transfer Act.  According to the agency, Chime deceived consumers about the speed and cost of remittance transfers on its mobile app, forced consumers to waive their legal rights, failed to provide consumers with required disclosures or timely receipts, and failed to properly track, investigate, and resolve consumer disputes and errors.  CFPB

October 13, 2023

Avtar S. Dhillon, who chaired the boards of directors of four public companies, has been ordered to pay $10 million in connection with fraud schemes that defrauded investors worldwide of hundreds of millions of dollars.  Dhillon was allegedly complicit in schemes orchestrated by Frederick Sharp and seven other defendants that involved control persons of microcap companies illegally dumping their stock in U.S. markets.  SEC

October 12, 2023

Trans Union LLC and its subsidiary, TransUnion Rental Screening Solutions, Inc. (TURSS), have agreed to pay $15 million to settle charges of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by failing to ensure the accuracy of information included in tenant background screening reports, thus hampering the ability of consumers to obtain housing.  Some of the failures included reporting developments in the same eviction proceeding as if they were from more than one eviction, mischaracterizing the nature of certain information, and failing to accurately report eviction outcomes.  CFPB; FTC

October 12, 2023

The CFTC has awarded more than $18 million to a whistleblower.  According to the agency, the whistleblower’s detailed information and significant assistance led to enforcement actions by the CFTC as well as another agency.  CFTC

October 6, 2023

Two groups of student loan debt relief scammers—SL Finance LLC and owners Michael and Christian Castillo, along with BCO Consulting Services and SLA Consulting Services Inc and owners Gianni Olilang, Brandon Clores, Kishan Bhakta, and Allan Radam—have been ordered to pay a partially suspended $5.8 million each and be permanently banned from the industry.  The defendants pretended to be affiliated with the Department of Education and used their fake position to charge students millions in junk fees through nonexistent loan repayment and forgiveness programs.  FTC