A Legal Battle Brews Over the Power of America’s Consumer Finance Watchdog

The Wall Street Journal (online registration required): WASHINGTON—In late 2014, an in-house judge for the government’s new consumer-finance watchdog ruled that a New Jersey lender took illegal “kickbacks” from mortgage insurers, boosting costs for borrowers. The company said the decision invoked a new, overly aggressive interpretation of an old law and appealed to the agency chief.

That gambit backfired in a big way and launched a legal battle over the man who has become one of the...

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