Issue link: http://dsnews.uberflip.com/i/749391
ยป VISIT US ONLINE @ DSNEWS.COM 23 lead to good public policy. CUNA continues to support a five-person commission for the CFPB instead of its current structure." PHH had originally been fined $6.4 million by an administrative law judge in November 2014 for accepting kickbacks in the form of reinsurance premiums paid to a PHH subsidiary by mortgage insurers, a violation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA). e administrative law judge ruled that PHH was responsible only for payments accepted on mortgage loans that closed on or after July 21, 2008; Cordray expanded that penalty to $109 million in June 2015, saying that PHH was in violation of RESPA for every kickback payment the company accepted after July 21, 2008 even, if the loans closed before that date. PHH immediately appealed the decision and the arguments were heard in the D.C. Court of Appeals in April 2016. PHH's petition with the court stated: "Never before has so much authority been consolidated in the hands of one individual shielded from the president's control and Congress's power of the purse." is, PHH claimed, put the CFPB director's power and tenure at odds with the U.S. Supreme Court's Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board decision from 2010. CFPB defended itself and the $109 million disgorgement in a filing with the D.C. Circuit Court, claiming the penalty was a "small fraction" of the kickbacks and that the $109 million was merely money that the company should have never received to begin with, and therefore in essence not a penalty.