As BB&T Tries Taking Over Suntrust Disparate Lending and Branch Closures To Be Raised

By Matthew R. Lee, FOIA docs

SOUTH BRONX, February 7 – When BB&T announced a $66 billion proposal to take over Suntrust Bank, which would close a still undisclosed number of branches and extend BB&T disparate lending patterns, many linked it to deregulatory moves in Washington. These include an assault on the Community Reinvestment Act, being led by Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting, who while at OneWest Bank led a false commenting process to push through a merger with CIT Group. 

Fair Finance Watch, which has been tracking BB&T as well as Otting's and the Federal Reserve's anti-CRA moves, finds that for example in the Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area in 2017 BB&T denied the home purchase mortgage applications of African Americans2.2 times more frequently than whites, while making only 50 such loans to African Americans, and 23 to Latinos, compared to 458 to whites, all more disparate that other lenders in the market. While some portray the proposed merger as a fait accompli, the Fed and OCC must hold public comment periods and consider the banks' CRA records, even as they race to undermine the law. Inner City Press will submit requests under the Freedom of Information Act, as it has on OneWest - CIT and now for Otting's schedule as Comptroller. 

On January 16 Inner City Press asked the OCC on the expedited basis for records to disclose Otting's meetings with the banking industry and others:  "Dear OCC FOIA Officer: Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch (ICP) makes this request for records pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552, and OCC regulations. ICP requests copies of records sufficient to show all of Comptroller Otting's scheduled meetings, appointments, and scheduled events from the date he became Comptroller to the date of your response including but not limited to Outlook calendar entries and daily briefing books for Comptroller Otting on those dates... ICP requests that you expedite the processing of this request. There is media interest and there exist possible questions concerning the OCC's integrity, which affect public confidence. See e.g. this article and the CRA ANPR since." We'll have more on this. Bigger picture, or on the club BB&T is trying to join, Otting's OneWest colleague and now boss, US Treasury Department Steve Mnuchin on December 22 from Cabo called six big US banks: "Brian Moynihan, Bank of America; Michael Corbat, Citi; David Solomon, Goldman Sachs; Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase, James Gorman, Morgan Stanley; Tim Sloan, Wells Fargo. The CEOs confirmed that they have ample liquidity available for lending to consumer, business markets, and all other market operations...  Here are some of the documents, for (still) free download on Patreon. 

 On October 1 Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch submitted the documents obtained under FOIA into the record before the OCC, stating that "These documents, which must be considered as part of this ANPR and any subsequent formal rulemaking, show that fraudulent comments supporting Otting's OneWest were submitted to the OCC - presumptively attributable to Otting.
The documents show that the OCC sought an explanation from Otting's / OneWest's outside counsel - and the OCC's and Justice Department's response to date reflect that no such explanation was ever provided. The OCC nevertheless approved the merger and even gave weight to the fraudulent comments. On this record we again insist that Otting be recused from this ANPR and any related rulemaking or proceedings. We have other substantive concerns about this ANPR but view the question of Mr Otting's recusal (and of with whom he has met, on which Inner City Press has another long-pending FOIA request) as threshold matter than must be addressed as quickly as possible."

 The FOIA document as provided by the OCC and US Department of Justice reflect that the OCC never followed up on its lone (and wan) question to Otting's counsel as Sullivan & Cromwell to explain the fraudulent comments. Nor did this counsel respond to questions from The Intercept's David Dayen, who reports: "AFTER A YEARLONG effort to obtain the information, which included ongoing litigation, the OCC made available 15 pages. They contain emails to and from David Finnegan, an OCC senior licensing analyst who was a point of contact for public comment on the merger.

Four individuals contended in emails to Finnegan that they never sent the comment letters supporting the merger. “This is to bring to your attention that I received an email from the office of OCC regarding a subject I am completely unaware of,” wrote one individual (the OCC redacted the emailers’ identifying information). “I DID NOT send the email below that you responded to. This is a fraudulent use of my email account.” The other three sent similar complaints.

The letter of support attributed to these individuals was identical to the letter posted at the OneWest Bank website.

Matthew Lee of Inner City Press expressed outrage at the fake comments. “There’s nothing more offensive of speech rights than artificially presenting someone as saying something you don’t believe,” Lee said. “You have the right to be silent. It’s so beyond the pale.”

FOIA Finds: OneWest CIT Ban... by on Scribd

Finnegan responded to these emailers, thanking them for letting him know. He also sent two emails to Stephen Salley, an attorney with Sullivan & Cromwell, who was representing OneWest in the merger. “FYI and review. We would appreciate any information you can provide regarding this submission,” Finnegan wrote to Salley on both occasions.

Presumably, Finnegan reached out to OneWest’s lawyer about the fake comments because they featured the same form letter that OneWest had written to encourage public support. But the two emails are the only record that OCC did any investigation of the fake comments. There is no reply from Salley or Sullivan & Cromwell to the OCC, at least not in written form. “By reaching out to the attorneys immediately, it suggests something serious, and yet there’s no follow-up that’s apparent whatsoever,” said Kevin Stein of the California Reinvestment Coalition...Olivia Weiss, a spokesperson for CIT, forwarded a request for comment to her colleague Gina Proia, who declined to comment. Salley did not respond when asked whether he or his law firm responded to the OCC....In his public comment for Inner City Press, Lee asked for Otting to recuse himself from the new rule-making, highlighting the fake comment controversy. “Public participation is key to CRA, on performance evaluations and crucially on bank merger and expansion applications,” Lee wrote. He added that it’s unclear whether the OCC has improved its processes to prevent fake comments from being submitted again in the CRA rule-making.
We'll have more on this - watch this site.  

In 2012 Subprime Lending Disparities Continued at Key Bank, Suntrust and US Bank, Denials at TD, Regions and Others as Fed Lax

By Matthew R. Lee

SOUTH BRONX NY, April 7, 2013 -- In its second study of the just-released 2012 mortgage lending data, Inner City Press and Bronx-based Fair Finance Watch have found that a range of regional banks including KeyCorp, US Bank NA and SunTrust Mortgage continued with high cost loans and disparities by race and ethnicity in denials and higher-cost lending.

  2012 is the ninth year in which the data distinguishes which loans are higher cost, over a federally-defined rate spread of 1.5 percent over Treasury bill yields.

The just released data show that KeyCorp confined African Americans to higher-cost loans above this rate spread 2.51 times more frequently than whites in 2012, Fair Finance Watch has found. 

  KeyCorp denied the applications of African Americans 1.76 times more frequently than those of whites.

  KeyCorp confined Latinos to higher-cost loans above the rate spread 1.53 times more frequently than whites in 2012, the data show. It denied the applications of Latinos 1.44 times more frequently than those of whites.

  SunTrust Mortgage confined African Americans to higher-cost loans above this rate spread 2.50 times more frequently than whites in 2012; for Latinos its disparity was 1.50.

  US Bank NA confined African Americans to higher-cost loans above this rate spread 1.74 times more frequently than whites in 2012; for Latinos its disparity was 1.97. There are some irregularities in US Bank NA's data that Inner City Press will be further raising.

“Even after the bailouts, lending disparities grew worse and not better," said Fair Finance Watch. "Regulatory laxity, at least on fair lending, has continued despite the financial meltdown caused by predatory lending."

  In 2012, Toronto Dominion or TD Bank denied the applications of African Americans 1.75 times more frequently than those of whites. For both PNC and Regions the disparity for African Americans was 1.57.

  "The Federal Reserve is becoming more and more bank-friendly, including with recent Freedom of Information Act appeal denials by Governor Jay Power, formerly a hedge funder and Deutsche Bank official Jay Powell. It remains unclear if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will get to this problem," Fair Finance Watch continued. "The disparities in the 2012 mortgage data of these banks further militate for aggressively watchdogging and breaking up these banks."

Instead, the Fed allowed the creation of a fifth mega-bank in Capital One when it acquired ING DIRECT and the subprime assets of HSBC. In 2012, Fair Finance Watch has found, HSBC denied the applications of African Americans 1.34 times more frequently than those of whites.

Also in 2012, fully 9.93 percent of Capital One's morgage loans to African American were higher cost loans, versus 7.61 percent of Capital One's loans to whites. To Latinos, the percentage was even higher: 10.31 percent.

And so Fair Finance Watch and Inner City Press have re-doubled watchdogging. Last week it studied the 2012 lending of the “Big Four” -- Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase,Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

The data show that Citigroup confined African Americans to higher-cost loans above this rate spread 2.09 times more frequently than whites in 2012, Fair Finance Watch found.

Citigroup confined Latinos to higher-cost loans above the rate spread 1.83 times more frequently than whites in 2012, the data show.

For JPMorgan Chase, the disparity for African Americans in 2012 was 1.7; for Bank of America it was 1.61; for the largest of Wells Fargo's many HMDA data reporters, the disparity for African Americans in 2011 was up to 2.32.

Challenged by the groups in 2012 and still pending are applications by Customers Bancorp and by M&T, to acquire Hudson City Savings Bank.

Regulators had allowed Hudson City in 2011, for conventional home purchase loans in the New York City Metropolitan Statistical Area, to make 765 such loans to whites and only FIVE to African Americans (and only 44 to Latinos). Meanwhile, Hudson City denied the applications of African Americans 3.21 times more frequently then those of whites.

In March 2013 Inner City Press and Fair Finance Watch began a challenge to Investors Bancorp's application to acquire Roma. In the NYC MSA in 2011 for conventional home purchase loans, Investors Bank made 220 such loans to whites, and only TWO such loans to African Americans. Its denial rate for Latinos was FIVE TIMES higher than for whites.

 On April 5, Investors Bancorp announced it will try to also acquire $300 million Gateway Community Financial Corp - this also will be opposed, on the current record.

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act required that the 2012 data be provided by March 31, following March 1 joint requests by Fair Finance Watch and Inner City Press. Several banks still did not provide their data by the deadline, despite confirming receipt of the request. Further studies will follow: watch this site.

Denying Corruption of Citigroup and BofA, Obiangs Cite Obama, ExxonMobil's Investment

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/banks1eguinea021510.html

UNITED NATIONS, February 15 -- Ten days after the release by the U.S. Senate of a reporting on evasion by the son of Equatorial Guinea's President for Life Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue of anti-money laundering controls by and at Citigroup, Bank of America, Wachovia / Wells Fargo and others, the Obiang regime fired back, calling the report racist and citing in its defense the election of Barack Obama.

Inner City Press is putting the Obiangs' memo online, here.

The Senate report exhaustively shows how Teodorin and his lawyers moved tens of millions of dollars through Citibank and Wachovia (owned by Wells Fargo since the financial meltdown), and used accounts at Bank of America, City National and other banks. The report described how Teodorin

"brought over $100 million into the United States using wire transfer systems at just two U.S. financial institutions, Wachovia Bank and Citibank. Neither system had been programmed to detect or block wire transfers bearing his name. In 2009... Citibank declined to take the same action due to projections that identifying, freezing, and investigating these wire transfers would generate too much work for its anti-money laundering staff...From 2004 to 2007, Mr. Obiang used accounts at three U.S. banks, Union Bank of California, Bank of America, and Citibank, often with Mr. Berger’s assistance, to deposit, transfer and spend nearly $10 million. Most of these funds were wire transferred from accounts in Equatorial Guinea held in the name of Mr. Obiang or two EG companies he controlled, Somagui Forestal and Socage."

To this, the Government of Equatorial Guinea in a communique sent to the Press on February 15, the President's Day holiday in the U.S., argues that

"According to Equatoguinean legislation, as occurs exactly in the most of the world, the natural and legal persons, as occurs in this case with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, are perfectly authorized to do business and maintain other types of jobs at the margin of their Ministerial obligations."

Teodorin's "marginal" business includes a $30 million mansion in Malibu, a jet and recording studio, among other things. Previously he and his president for life father Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo moved their money, like Pinochet, into the U.S. through Riggs Bank.

Inner City Press and its Fair Finance Watch dug into these connections, including to Spain's Santander Bank and HSBC, when the Obiang disgraced Riggs was being sold to PNC Bank. Click here for coverage in Le Monde, in French.

The U.S. Federal Reserve did little at that time. With the major banks it regulates now implicated again in corrupt money laundering, what will the supposedly chastened Federal Reserve do?

The "Equatoguinean" response complains at the Senate report deals only with African corruption -- Angola with HSBC, Gabon's Omar Bongo with Citigroup, Nigeria's Abubakar with Suntrust and the ubiquitous Citibank -- and not any other continent. In this, it echoes the defenders of Sudan's Omar al Bashir, that the International Criminal Court and its prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo have so far indicted only African defendants.

But Equatorial Guinea goes further. Its cover email to Inner City Press argues that "it can be considered as an authentic insult to Africa, and more so after the people of the United States have voted in the majority for a President of African origin."

Then, in capital letters, Equatorial Guinea screams that

"In Africa and in Equatorial Guinea we are tired of BEING TREATED FOR CENTURIES LIKE INHUMAN BEASTS, ON WHICH ALL THE BRUTAL AND EVIL BEHAVIOURS POSSIBLE ARE BLAMED. This is again so verifiable in this case that even different media of the United States have written these days, in regards to this case, THAT THE FAMILY OBIANG PRACTICES CANNIBALISM."

Another of the ICC's and Ocampo's indictees, Jean Pierre Bemba the previous Vice President of the Congo, argued during his campaign against Joseph Kabila that, "I am not a cannibal!"

The Equatoguinean defense that's closest to the mark is that

"We also wish to put on the record that the United States is the country from which comes the highest foreign investment in Equatorial Guinea, which exceeds 12 billion USA dollars, and that no American corporation has complained of fraudulent behaviour of the Government. We also expect the Senate Subcommittee to be consistent with the criteria of the North American companies."

Or should it be the other way around? Major U.S. investors with the Obiangs include ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil, Hess Corporation, and Noble Energy. We will have more on all this.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/banks1eguinea021510.html