A day after filing emergency motions to stop two states’ cease-and-desist orders, Ocwen Financial Corp. is turning to the Constitution to defend itself in a federal regulator’s lawsuit.
On Tuesday, Ocwen disclosed it filed two emergency motions requesting immediate court action restraining cease-and-desist orders brought by Illinois and Massachusetts regulators.
The filings were in response to a barrage of state and federal regulatory actions last week against the Atlanta-based firm including state enforcement orders and two lawsuits.
One of the lawsuits was filed by the Florida attorney general, while the other was filed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
On Wednesday, Ocwen disclosed that
it filed two motions on Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida seeking an early court ruling that the CFPB is unconstitutional.
According to Ocwen, the bureau’s enforcement action should be thrown out.
“Ocwen believes that the CFPB is unconstitutionally structured because it vests too much unfettered power in the hands of the CFPB’s director and the bureau itself, without any meaningful oversight by the president or Congress,” Ocwen said in a press statement. “A panel of three judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals recently found that the CFPB is unconstitutionally structured — a decision which is now being reviewed by the entire D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. In that case, the Department of Justice recently filed a brief that stated its agreement with the panel decision, that the CFPB is unconstitutional for this reason.”
Ocwen says its filing gives notice of its challenge to the regulator’s constitutionality and its intent to have the case dismissed.
The mortgage banker said it filed a second motion that seeks the Department of Justice’s participation in the case in order to highlight Attorney General
Jeff Session’s conclusion that the CFPB is unconstitutionally structured.
The CFPB reportedly contends that Ocwen has wrongfully foreclosed at least a thousand times when the borrowers were in the middle of qualifying for a loan modification.
“But so far as Ocwen is aware — and the complaint does not identify the loans — the CFPB did not actually look at the individual servicing files for these consumers’ loans before making this allegation.”
