Financial Services

YOUR EXPERTS IN ADDRESSING BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICE ISSUES

Banks, financial institutions and non-financial companies are facing escalating challenges in today’s rapidly changing regulatory landscape.  Your businesses need more cost-effective, innovative legal solutions than ever before.  Prince Lobel’s Banking and Financial Services Practice Group has extensive experience representing national, regional, and local financial institutions, investment firms, institutional lenders, and other financial services providers in a wide range of transactional, regulatory compliance, advisory, and litigation matters.  Our culture of collaboration allows us to offer you high-quality counsel that is even greater than the sum of our parts.

OUR COMPREHENSIVE FINANCIAL SERVICES INCLUDE:

• Negotiation and drafting of term loans, lines of credit, and more complex financing vehicles, including mezzanine lending arrangements for both borrowers and lenders
• Loan restructuring and work-outs
• Defense of lender liability issues
• Prosecution of complex commercial contracts
• Loan and guarantee collection actions
• Resolutions to contract and loan disputes using Alternative Dispute Resolution mediums
• Compliance with the Data Security and Gramm- Leach-Bliley Act requirements
• Contracts with vendors to assure compliance with these risk management regulations
• Compliance in transferring data across international borders
• Actions asserting claims of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and the implied contractual duty of good faith and fair dealing
• Unconscionability, breach of contract, and statutory violations under the Fair Debt Collections Act, the Truth in Lending Act, the Massachusetts Credit Cost Consumer Act, and the Predatory Home Loan Practices Act
• Regulatory investigations, including SEC enforcement actions, DOJ investigations concerning alleged violations of the Federal False Claims Act, and state investigations concerning the Massachusetts False Claims Act

Our attorneys have been at the forefront of the subprime litigation arena in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and have significant expertise defending a vast array of lender liability claims, including Massachusetts chapter 93A consumer protection and related claims.  The attorneys at Prince Lobel have been actively involved in many of the recent lender liability decisions issued by Massachusetts courts, which are shaping and reshaping the law in this area virtually every day.

Representation of a United States national bank chartered by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in connection with vendor contracts requiring the bank’s terms: 1) addressing protection of Non-Public Personal Information and other confidential information, 2) adoption of data security processes and policies, 3) limitation of liability, 4) indemnification provisions, and other necessary terms to achieve compliance with OCC risk management regulations.

Representation of a United States bank holding company bank regulated by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in connection with software licenses, consulting agreements, regulatory compliance and vendor contracts.

Representation of a full-service community bank servicing southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the collection of money from debtors in default of various loan or guaranty obligations to the Bank.

Representation of an independent community bank focused on a South Shore Community Lending and Banking Area in the collection of money from debtors in default of various loan or guaranty obligations to the Bank.

Representation of various size lending institutions (National and Local) with respect to workouts, commercial litigation, bankruptcy litigation, lender-liability litigation and foreclosures.

Prince Lobel obtained a favorable decision in a Suffolk Superior Court case that is among the first published opinions in Massachusetts to apply the principle that an assignee of a mortgage loan cannot be held affirmatively liable for the assignor’s alleged wrongful conduct.

We obtained summary judgment on behalf of our client, a large mortgage company, which resulted in a judgment dismissing the complaint with prejudice. This case clarified an earlier decision which held that a mortgage company that was not currently the mortgagee of record had standing to seek judgment against the borrower under the Service Members Civil Relief Act. This ruling also confirmed that borrowers that had defaulted under loan prior to May 1, 2008 were not entitled to an extended right to cure period even if the foreclosure occurred after May 2008.

A United States District Court judge denied a request for preliminary injunctive relief seeking to stay foreclosure actions brought by our client. The plaintiff sought the stay due to an inability to tender the amount owed for rescission. The court found, among other things, that even if a violation had occurred, a borrower is not likely to prevail on a claim for rescission unless they can return the principal balance due and owing.

We obtained a federal law ruling on behalf of our client, a mortgage services company, that there is no extended right of rescission for residential borrowers when more than three years has passed since consummation of the loan. The court also held that the borrower cannot claim lack of knowledge of the alleged violation after the date of closing, as the borrower would have possessed all the requisite information at the time of the closing.

Our client, a full-service bank, prevailed in a case that confirmed that a borrower does not have standing to seek redress from a mortgage servicer’s alleged failure to comply with HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program) guidelines. The court found that the borrowers were not intended third-party beneficiaries under service contract with the government.

We represented a prominent financial services company in an employee whistleblower case before the United States Department of Labor and in federal court. First, Prince Lobel was able to obtain dismissal of the DOL matter through an aggressive and novel approach to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Next, we strategically attacked the federal court complaint, and at the same time amassed a myriad of evidence to negate the whistleblower allegations. In the end, Prince Lobel succeeded in creating an atmosphere conducive to favorably resolving the case for our client.

We successfully represented a large regional mutual fund in a dispute with a competitor concerning the competitor’s wholesale poaching of our client’s fund managers and sales executives.

We successfully represented a national lending institution and two of its loan officers in an action brought under the federal securities laws in connection with a corporate acquisition.

Representation of an international IT vendor to the Financial Services industry in negotiation of contracts with institutions subject to SEC, FINRA and Regulation S-P under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, as amended.

Representation of a United States national bank chartered by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in connection with vendor contracts requiring the bank’s terms: 1) addressing protection of Non-Public Personal Information and other confidential information, 2) adoption of data security processes and policies, 3) limitation of liability, 4) indemnification provisions, and other necessary terms to achieve compliance with OCC risk management regulations.

Representation of a United States bank holding company bank regulated by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in connection with software licenses, consulting agreements, regulatory compliance and vendor contracts.

Representation of an international IT vendor to the Financial Services industry in negotiation of contracts with the United Kingdom and other EU based institutions subject to the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority requirements (including those regarding Confidentiality, Data Protection and oversight), the EU Data Protection Directive (“Directive 95/46/EEC on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data”) and/or the UK Data Protection Act 1998, as amended.