The second of a two-part "handbook" — the first has been simultaneously posted on author's SSRN page — this pithy article details the potential defenses available to financial institutions and the issues that all parties should be prepared to address when proposing or rebuffing a claim...

On Nov. 10, 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed a lightly amended version of House Resolution 14279 into law. Days later, Rhode Island's Fernand St. Germain made clear its primary purpose: the modernization of the existing bank regulatory system. Tucked within this bill lay the Electronic Funds...

Over the course of its multi-decade existence, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act ("RESPA") has been amended to cover many diverse yet related “real estate” subjects. In its present iteration, two provisions — sections 2605(g) and 2609 — deal with mortgage escrow accounts, with...

The rapid rise of cryptocurrencies over the last twenty years has interjected havoc into the staid field of commercial law, one long regulated by the Uniform Commercial Code (“U.C.C.” or “UCC”). Naturally, many individuals and organizations started to count their stash of...

After an unexpectedly slow start, the Trump Administration's deregulatory push finally gained momentum in late 2017. In the field of student lending, this slowdown affected the Department of Education (DOE), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the Department of Justice (DOJ)....

When the Supreme Court (“Court”) handed down its opinions in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333 (2011), the majority's holding engendered breathless (at least in legal terms) headlines. Clearly, without a smidgen of doubt on the part of arbitration's opponents and proponents, five...

With debts rising faster than new graduates' starting salaries, a student debt crisis has the potential to haunt the nation much in the way the mortgage crisis did ten years ago. Beginning in 2016, a new mood dampened the federal bureaucracy's regulatory pace. The DOE, led by Secretary Elisabeth...

As of the a bankruptcy petition’s filing date (the “petition date”), § 362(a)(1) stays “the commencement or continuation ... of a judicial, administrative, or other action or proceeding against the debtor that was or could have been commenced before the commencement of the case under...

Distilled to its most basic sense, § 363(k) has always given secured creditor the right “credit bid,” or to use, up to the full amount of the debt owed to the secured creditor by the debtor, as currency in any sale of the collateral securing the debt owed to that claimant under § 363(b)...