June 06, 2017

Brown Statement on Trump's Nominee for Key Wall Street Watchdog

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) – ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee – issued the following statement regarding President Trump’s intention to nominate former OneWest Bank CEO Joseph Otting to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a key Wall Street watchdog.

“The President’s choice for watchdog of America’s largest banks is someone who signed a consent order - over shady foreclosure practices - with the very agency he's been selected to run. If Mr. Otting didn’t deal fairly with the customers at his own bank, it’s difficult to see why he’s the best choice to look out for the interests of customers at more than 1,400 banks and thrifts across the country.”

During Otting’s leadership of OneWest, the bank signed a 2011 consent order with the Office of Thrift Supervision, which later merged with the OCC, over problems related to robo-signing and other predatory practices that led to illegal foreclosures. Otting was Treasury Secretary Mnuchin’s chief lieutenant at OneWest, which Mnuchin purchased in 2009 and served as chairman until 2015.  

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