Court vacates Wells Fargo restitution order
An appeals court Wednesday voided a $203 million restitution order against Wells Fargo & Co. and threw out a lower court’s permanent injunction against the San Francisco-based bank’s overdraft policies, The Wall Street Journal reported. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a ruling that national banking laws pre-empt state laws, under which consumers had sued the San Francisco bank alleging its practice of posting debit-card transactions in high-to-low order violated California’s Unfair Competition Law. The appeals court also sent the case back to the district court judge to determine an amount of relief that would be appropriate after determining the bank violated a portion of California state law banning fraudulent misrepresentations to consumers.