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Regulatory Requirements
9 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2017
Brokers and Dealers [Abstract]  
Regulatory Requirements
Note 19 – Regulatory Requirements
Our business is subject to extensive regulation by federal, state and local governmental authorities, including the CFPB, HUD, the SEC and various state agencies that license, audit and conduct examinations of our servicing and lending activities. In addition, we operate under a number of regulatory settlements that subject us to ongoing monitoring or reporting. From time to time, we also receive requests (including requests in the form of subpoenas and civil investigative demands) from federal, state and local agencies for records, documents and information relating to our servicing and lending activities. The GSEs (and their conservator, the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA)), Ginnie Mae, the United States Treasury Department, various investors, non-Agency securitization trustees and others also subject us to periodic reviews and audits.
In the current regulatory environment, we have faced and expect to continue to face heightened regulatory and public scrutiny as an organization as well as stricter and more comprehensive regulation of the entire mortgage sector. We continue to work diligently to assess and understand the implications of the regulatory environment in which we operate and to meet the requirements of the changing environment in which we operate. We devote substantial resources to regulatory compliance, while, at the same time, striving to meet the needs and expectations of our customers, clients and other stakeholders. Our failure to comply with applicable federal, state and local laws, regulations and licensing requirements could lead to (i) administrative fines and penalties and litigation, (ii) loss of our licenses and approvals to engage in our servicing and lending businesses, (iii) governmental investigations and enforcement actions (iv) civil and criminal liability, including class action lawsuits and actions to recover incentive and other payments made by governmental entities, (v) breaches of covenants and representations under our servicing, debt or other agreements, (vi) damage to our reputation, (vii) inability to raise capital or otherwise fund our operations and (viii) inability to execute on our business strategy. In addition to amounts paid to resolve regulatory matters, we could incur costs to comply with the terms of such resolutions, including the costs of third-party firms to monitor our compliance with such resolutions. We have recognized $177.5 million in such third-party monitoring costs from January 1, 2014 through September 30, 2017 in connection with the 2013 Ocwen National Mortgage Settlement, our 2014 settlement with the New York Department of Financial Services (NY DFS) and our 2015 settlement with the California Department of Business Oversight (CA DBO).
We must comply with a large number of federal, state and local consumer protection and other laws and regulations, including, among others, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the Dodd-Frank Act), the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, the Homeowners Protection Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, as well as individual state licensing and foreclosure laws, individual state and local laws relating to registration of vacant or foreclosed properties, and federal and local bankruptcy rules. These laws and regulations apply to many facets of our business, including loan origination, default servicing and collections, use of credit reports, safeguarding of non-public personally identifiable information about our customers, foreclosure and claims handling, investment of, and interest payments on, escrow balances and escrow payment features and fees assessed on borrowers, and they mandate certain disclosures and notices to borrowers. These requirements can and do change as laws and regulations are enacted, promulgated, amended, interpreted and enforced, including through CFPB interpretive bulletins and other regulatory pronouncements. In addition, the actions of legislative bodies and regulatory agencies relating to a particular matter or business practice may or may not be coordinated or consistent. As a result, ensuring ongoing compliance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements can be challenging. The recent trend among federal, state and local legislative bodies and regulatory agencies has been toward increasing laws, regulations, investigative proceedings and enforcement actions with regard to residential real estate lenders and servicers.
Ocwen has various subsidiaries, including OLS, Homeward and Liberty, that are licensed to originate and/or service forward and reverse mortgage loans in those jurisdictions in which they operate and which require licensing. Our licensed entities are required to renew their licenses, typically on an annual basis, and to do so they must satisfy the license renewal requirements of each jurisdiction, which generally include financial requirements such as providing audited financial statements and satisfying minimum net worth requirements and non-financial requirements such as satisfactory completion of examinations relating to the licensee’s compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Failure to satisfy any of the requirements to which our licensed entities are subject could result in a variety of regulatory actions ranging from a fine, a directive requiring a certain step to be taken, a suspension or, ultimately, a revocation of a license, any of which could have a material adverse impact on our business, reputation, results of operations and financial condition. The minimum net worth requirements to which our licensed entities are subject are unique to each state and type of license. We believe our licensed entities were in compliance with all of their minimum net worth requirements at September 30, 2017.
OLS, Homeward and Liberty are also subject to seller/servicer obligations under agreements with one or more of the GSEs, HUD, FHA, VA and Ginnie Mae. These seller/servicer obligations include financial requirements, including capital requirements related to tangible net worth, as defined by the applicable agency, as well as extensive requirements regarding servicing, selling and other matters. To the extent that these requirements are not met or waived, the applicable agency may, at its option, utilize a variety of remedies including requirements to deposit funds as security for our obligations, sanctions, suspension or even termination of approved seller/servicer status, which would prohibit future originations or securitizations of forward or reverse mortgage loans or servicing for the applicable agency. Any of these actions could have a material adverse impact on us. To date, none of these counterparties has communicated any material sanction, suspension or prohibition in connection with our seller/servicer obligations. We believe we were in compliance with the related net worth requirements at September 30, 2017. Our non-Agency servicing agreements also contain requirements regarding servicing practices and other matters, and a failure to comply with these requirements could have a material adverse impact on our business. See Note 20 — Commitments for additional information relating to our recent interactions with Ginnie Mae as a result of the state regulatory actions discussed in that note.
The most restrictive of the various net worth requirements referenced above is based on the total assets of OLS, and the required net worth was $394.3 million at September 30, 2017.
There are a number of foreign laws and regulations that are applicable to our operations outside of the U.S., including laws and regulations that govern licensing, employment, safety, taxes and insurance and laws and regulations that govern the creation, continuation and the winding up of companies as well as the relationships between shareholders, our corporate entities, the public and the government in these countries. Non-compliance with these laws and regulations could result in adverse actions against us, including (i) restrictions on our operations in these counties, (ii) fines, penalties or sanctions or (iii) reputational damage.