Ocwen Financial 'pleased' with court decision on case versus CFPB

Ocwen Financial Corp. said it is "pleased" with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida's decision to grant judgment in the company's favor on nine of the 10 counts at issue in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's complaint.

In April 2017, the CFPB sued West Palm Beach, Fla.-based Ocwen Financial for "botched" mortgage servicing practices that occurred before Feb. 26, 2017.

Counts one to three cite the bureau's allegation that the company and units Ocwen Mortgage Servicing Inc., Ocwen Loan Servicing LLC and PHH Mortgage Corp. committed "unfair deceptive acts and practices" in violation of the Consumer Financial Protection Act, while count four mentions the companies' alleged CFPA, Truth in Lending Act and Regulation Z violations.

Counts five and six are about Ocwen Financial and its units' alleged violations of both the CFPA and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The seventh count concerns the companies' alleged Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, or RESPA, and Regulation X violations. For counts eight and nine, the CFPB claims Ocwen Financial and its subsidiaries violated the RESPA, Regulation X and CFPA.

The bureau alleges in count 10 that the companies violated the Homeowners Protection Act based on its failure to timely terminate private mortgage insurance automatically in relation to residential mortgage transactions when required to do so.

The involved companies' motion for summary judgment is on the ground that most of the bureau's current claims, which are counts one to nine, are barred by the preclusive effect of a 2014 consent judgment entered by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, among others. As to the last count, they contend that the bureau has failed to provide sufficient proof for its claim.

If the CFPB wants to pursue any claims under counts one to nine based on alleged servicing misconduct that happened after Feb. 26, 2017, the court reserved ruling on the mortgage servicer and originator's remaining grounds for summary judgment awaiting the bureau's submission of any supplemental statement identifying such claims. The court denied the regulator's motion for summary judgment for claims under the last count since Ocwen Financial disputed the bureau's claims of misconduct regarding the small subset of loans at issue.

Ocwen Financial said in a press release that it will keep on defending itself on the single remaining count and on any claims the court allows to proceed.