OTTING’S TENURE RESULTED IN WHISTLEBLOWER SETTLEMENT, REDLINING COMPLAINT,
ONGOING INVESTIGATIONS

Washington, DC, July 26, 2017—Today, the California Reinvestment Coalition released two fact sheets focused
on Joseph Otting’s record at OneWest Bank and its subsidiary Financial Freedom, and on complaints made to the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau about the bank. CRC is calling on members of the US Senate Banking
Committee to probe further into Joseph Otting’s record at OneWest Bank during his confirmation hearing
tomorrow.

“When Mr. Otting was fired in 2015, he walked away with a $12 million severance package. But since then,
more problems from his time as CEO of OneWest Bank have emerged,” explains Paulina Gonzalez, executive
director of the California Reinvestment Coalition. “In May, his former company agreed to an $89 million
whistleblower fraud settlement with the US Department of Justice and Mr. Otting was CEO for the majority of
the time when this alleged fraud occurred. If Mr. Otting wasn’t willing to follow the rules when he was a bank
CEO, why should senators have any confidence that he would be willing to enforce those same rules as
Comptroller of the Currency?”

“Senior homeowners and their families across the country lost their homes needlessly because of Financial
Freedom’s heavy handed foreclosure tactics,” explains Kevin Stein, deputy director at the California

Reinvestment Coalition. “Senators and their constituents deserve an explanation as to how his track record
qualifies him to oversee the largest banks in our country.”

Joseph Otting is one of three OneWest Bank alumni who have been nominated or confirmed to work in this
administration, including Steve Mnuchin, the former chair of OneWest, and Brian Brooks, the former general
counsel, who has been nominated for deputy treasury secretary, and who infamously bragged in his California
Bankers Association biography that he helped kill bankruptcy reforms that would have helped homeowners
avoid foreclosure.

1) New Fact Sheet on problems at OneWest Bank while Joseph Otting was CEO.

2) New Fact Sheet on CFPB complaints made against OneWest Bank during Otting’s tenure.