Law and legal issues

The Supreme Court issued an opinion Thursday morning that was unequivocal in its view that Congress is constitutionally empowered to fund agencies with open-ended and indirect funding mechanisms, overruling a 5th Circuit opinion from 2022 that found that executive branches must be subject to direct Congressional appropriations.

The lender lost a battle to toss the lawsuit, but convinced a judge to compel the regulator to produce data on its competitors.

Plaintiffs seeking class certification claim the bank uses an underwriting system that discriminates against minority mortgage applicants.

The company's attorneys had previously managed to successfully decertify the class in the seven-year long case, but the decision was reversed last year.

Many legal experts think the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in a case challenging its funding. Such a ruling would unleash a flurry of litigation that has been on hold pending the outcome of the constitutional challenge.

Industry stakeholders predict the bombshell allegations around how United Wholesale Mortgage does business will impact customer sentiment and could lead to more regulatory oversight.

A hedge fund-backed newsroom accused the industry giant of overcharging borrowers by hundreds of millions of dollars through "corrupt UWM loyalist" brokers.

A federal judge in Texas sided with bank trade groups, agreeing that bank regulators might have overstepped their authority in reforming parts of the Community Reinvestment Act.

The broker argues it did not break any agreement because it never signed an amendment to UWM's ultimatum in 2022.

A regulator claims Freedom Mortgage's bad data in 2020 violated a consent order the company signed a year earlier for intentional misrepresentations.