News By Edition

Hosted by the Federal Insurance Office of the U.S. Treasury Department, a summer roundtable brought together title insurance professionals as well as consumer advocacy groups to identify opportunities to improve access to homeownership. The Treasury recently released details from that meeting.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, appointed leaders of the incoming administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, were urged by several state-level insurance department commissioners to recommend President-elect Trump eliminate the Federal Insurance Office.

After a bank was sued by the relative of a trust holder over defaulted loans and alleged mishandling of closing procedures, the trust’s title insurance issuer was asked to defend against the claims. The insurer declined, and the bank and insurer filed cross motions for summary judgement.

As part of its routine, periodic review of title insurance rates in the state, the Texas Department of Insurance has scheduled a hearing to consider a recommendation from the Texas Land Title Association on rate changes.

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to advance and become more applicable to a variety of use cases, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum offered a comprehensive guide to how the state’s laws on AI can impact business practices.

The Maryland State Senate is considering a bill that would repeal and re-enact several sections of the Annotated Code of Maryland to update definitions, clarify requirements and modernize procedures for the filing, maintenance and transmission of land records.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a new bill into law which enshrines a specific timeline for data breach notifications and coincides with an expansive data security bill package recently enacted in the state.

A Maryland bill currently under review by the house judicial committee would enshrine laws against the fraudulent sale, lease or conveyance of real property by someone other than the owner, among other regulations.

The U.S. Treasury Department was notified by a third-party software provider that a Treasury office cloud service was compromised by a threat actor believed to be sponsored by the Chinese government who gained access to employee workstations and unclassified files.

Introduced in early December, South Carolina HB 3401 would establish and codify various consumer data rights, require privacy policy disclosures, prohibit government interference in social media moderation and more.

A comprehensive final rule was issued by the Justice Department to implement an executive order intended to prevent “access to Americans’ bulk sensitive personal data and United States government-related data by countries of concern.”

Rostislav Panev, a dual Israeli/Russian national, is in custody and facing charges as developer of the LockBit ransomware group. The LockBit group attacked more than 2,500 victims in at least 120 countries around the world from 2019 to 2024.

In a series of reversals, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against the enforcement of a Jan. 1 deadline for the reporting of beneficial ownership information to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network under the Corporate Transparency Act.

GetApp’s 2024 Executive Cybersecurity Report showed that 72 percent of the cybersecurity professions it surveyed reported senior executives have been targeted by cyberattacks in the last 18 months. Despite the danger, many organizations are failing to adapt their cybersecurity strategies to protect their top leaders.

The California Privacy Protection Agency announced the new year will bring with it increases for its fine and penalty structure. The new rules and dollar values will be effective as of Jan. 1, 2025, and will include increases to civil penalty amounts, administrative fine amounts and monetary damage ranges.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law a comprehensive collection of legislation that implements stronger protections for personal consumer data, clarifies regulations against hate speech, adds safeguards to medical and insurance information and more.

The Michigan legislature passed a bill into law which amends the Michigan Law on Notarial Acts to expand the range of permitted remote online notarization and communications technologies.