On February 8, HUD issued a final rule authorizing so-called “disparate impact” or “effects test” claims under the Fair Housing Act. The rule provides support for private or governmental plaintiffs challenging housing or mortgage lending practices that have a “disparate impact” on protected classes of individuals, even if the practice is facially neutral and non-discriminatory and there is no evidence that the practice was motivated by a discriminatory intent. The rule also will permit practices to be challenged based on claims that the practice improperly creates, increases, reinforces, or perpetuates segregated housing patterns.

In its final rule, HUD codified a three-step burden-shifting approach to determine liability under a disparate impact claim. Once a practice has been shown by the plaintiff to have a disparate impact on a protected class, the final rule states that the defendant would have the burden of showing that the challenged practice “is necessary to achieve one or more substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interests of the respondent . . . or defendant . . . . A legally sufficient justification must be supported by evidence and may not be hypothetical or speculative.” As proposed, the defendant would have had the burden of proving that the challenged practice “has a necessary and manifest relationship to one or more legitimate, nondiscriminatory interests.” Read more…

On December 21, the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) announced that it filed with HUD a housing discrimination complaint against a major insurance company regarding the offering of hazard insurance in a certain geographic area. According to the statement filed in support of its complaint, NFHA alleges that the company refuses to underwrite homeowners’ insurance policies for homes that have flat roofs in the Wilmington, Delaware area, a policy that NFHA charges has a racially disparate impact on African-American and minority communities. Although insurance and insurers are not explicitly covered in the Fair Housing Act, NFHA argues that federal courts have given deference to HUD’s interpretation of the statute, holding that the Fair Housing Act applies to all types of discriminatory insurance practices. NFHA’s complaint is based on its own testing of independent insurance agencies and a single university study of the relationship between roof type and race in the Wilmington area. NFHA claims that its testing of six insurance agencies shows that independent insurance agents were willing to underwrite policies on homes with flat roofs, while agents affiliated only with the insurance company targeted by NFHA cited a company policy that disallowed underwriting policies on such homes. Further, NFHA claims that the university study found a statistically significant relationship between minority populations and homes that have flat roofs, and therefore the “no flat roof policy” disproportionately impacts African-American and minority communities. Moreover, NFHA claims that there is no business justification for such a policy and that the insurance company does not apply the same policy in other cities. Under its fair housing complaint procedures HUD will now conduct its own investigation and determine whether further administrative action is required.

Anyone who has been following enforcement activity in consumer financial services knows that fair lending is a key focal point for federal regulators, with recent huge monetary settlements and more likely to occur.  It’s not just a large bank issue; community banks have also been targeted. What can bank boards of directors and management do to avoid or mitigate such regulatory actions?  Identify the risks and address and resolve them before they become big risks.

Over the past year, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has entered into the three largest fair lending settlements in history – all of which carried multimillion dollar price tags to resolve allegations of discrimination in retail and wholesale mortgage lending by major lenders. The DOJ, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and prudential banking regulators (FDIC, Federal Reserve, and OCC) are all aggressively pursuing, and in some cases actively soliciting, fair lending cases. Many of these cases are based on the controversial “disparate impact” theory of discrimination, which narrowly escaped review by the U.S. Supreme Court in early 2012, to determine whether this legal theory is even cognizable under federal fair lending laws. Notwithstanding the unresolved question over the use of disparate impact in the fair lending context, the federal banking regulatory and enforcement agencies have uniformly stated that they will prosecute fair lending cases under this legal theory.

Fair lending allegations are not limited to large national retail banks. Community banks have also been targeted in these investigations and complaints. For example, in June 2011, DOJ reached a settlement with Nixon State Bank to resolve allegations that the bank had violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) by charging higher prices on unsecured consumer loans made to Hispanic borrowers, which required Nixon to pay approximately $100,000 in restitution. Nixon State Bank did not maintain written loan pricing guidelines for its unsecured consumer loans; instead, the bank’s loan officers were granted broad discretion in handling all aspects of the unsecured consumer loan transaction. DOJ alleged that this policy had a disparate impact on Hispanic borrowers. In a more recent case from September 2012, Luther Burbank Savings Bank (discussed below) agreed to settle with DOJ for $2 million for setting a minimum residential mortgage loan amount that adversely impacted African American and Hispanic borrowers.

Regulators or plaintiffs typically demonstrate “disparate impact” through a burden-shifting test that begins with an allegation that a lender applies a facially neutral policy or practice consistently to all credit applicants, but the policy or practice has a disproportionately adverse impact on members of a group protected under ECOA or the Fair Housing Act, the federal fair lending laws (protected class group).* If the first prong of the analysis is satisfied, the burden shifts to the lender who must prove that there was a legitimate, non-discriminatory business justification for the policy at issue. If this prong is satisfied by the lender, the burden shifts back to the regulator or plaintiff to prove that there is a less discriminatory alternative that achieves the same result. Under the disparate impact theory, no evidence of intentional discrimination is required.

Example of disparate impact:

• A community bank maintains a residential mortgage lending policy that precludes mortgages on homes that are more than 50 years old. The area of town where homes tend to be over 50 years in age is predominantly Hispanic. As a result, the bank’s lending policy, which appears facially neutral, has a disproportionately adverse impact on Hispanic borrowers as a protected class group and has the effect of restricting access to credit for Hispanic borrowers. The bank is unable to offer a legitimate, nondiscriminatory business justification for the policy.

Set forth below are six “red flags” for fair lending risk that you should be aware of so you can determine whether your institution is taking appropriate action. Read more…

On August 27, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York approved a settlement between the DOJ and GFI Mortgage Bankers, Inc., a nonbank mortgage lender, resolving allegations that certain of the lender’s pricing policies disproportionately impacted African-American and Hispanic borrowers in violation of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). The DOJ brought the case in part under the disparate impact theory of discrimination, by which it attempts to establish discrimination based solely on a statistical analysis of the outcomes of a neutral policy without having to show that the lender intentionally discriminated against certain borrowers. In the consent order, the lender acknowledged that a statistical analysis performed by the government indicated that the note interest rates and fees it charged on mortgage loans to qualified African-American and Hispanic borrowers were higher than those charged to non-Hispanic white borrowers. Prior to the settlement, the lender had filed a motion to dismiss the DOJ lawsuit, arguing that the DOJ’s disparate impact claims are not cognizable under the FHA or ECOA, and challenging the government’s statistical analysis. Under the agreement, the lender agreed to pay $3.5 million over five years in compensation to several hundred borrowers identified by the DOJ, as well as a $55,000 civil penalty. The lender also agreed to enhance certain of its lending policies and monitor and document loan prices and pricing decisions. Whether disparate impact claims are cognizable under the FHA remains unsettled, though the U.S. Supreme Court may have an opportunity to address the issue in the near future. BuckleySandler recently prepared a white paper examining the issue and explaining why the FHA does not permit disparate impact claims. A copy of DOJ’s announcement of the settlement may be found at http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/August/12-crt-1052.html.