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COMMITMENTS, CONTINGENCIES AND REGULATORY MATTERS
3 Months Ended
Mar. 31, 2016
Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]  
COMMITMENTS, CONTINGENCIES AND REGULATORY MATTERS
COMMITMENTS, CONTINGENCIES AND REGULATORY MATTERS 
Litigation 
From time to time, we are involved in legal and administrative proceedings arising in the course of our business. We record a liability for these matters if an unfavorable outcome is probable and the amount of loss can be reasonably estimated, including expected insurance coverage. For proceedings where the reasonable estimate of loss is a range, we record a best estimate of loss within the range.
On September 8, 2014, the West Palm Beach Firefighters’ Pension Fund filed a putative securities class action suit against Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. and certain of its current or former officers and directors in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida alleging violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 with regard to disclosures concerning pricing and transactions with related parties that allegedly inflated Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. share prices. The Court subsequently appointed the Pension Fund for the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 35 and the Annuity Fund for the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 35 as Lead Plaintiffs. On January 30, 2015, Lead Plaintiffs filed an amended class action complaint which added Ocwen Financial Corporation as a defendant, and seeks a determination that the action may be maintained as a class action on behalf of purchasers of Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. securities between April 25, 2013 and December 21, 2014 and an unspecified amount of damages. Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. moved to dismiss the suit on March 23, 2015. On September 4, 2015, the Court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss, finding that the Lead Plaintiffs’ amended complaint failed to state a claim as to any of the defendants, but permitting the Lead Plaintiffs to file another amended complaint. Lead Plaintiffs subsequently filed second and third amended complaints with substantially similar claims and theories. Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. moved to dismiss the third amended complaint on October 22, 2015. On December 22, 2015, the Court issued an order dismissing with prejudice all claims against Ocwen Financial Corporation and certain claims against Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. and the officer and director defendants, but denying the motion to dismiss as to other claims. Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. intends to continue to vigorously defend this suit.

On February 11, 2015, W.A. Sokolowski, an alleged shareholder of Ocwen Financial Corporation, filed an amended shareholder derivative complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida against Ocwen Financial Corporation (as a nominal defendant), certain of its current or former officers and directors, Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. and other companies. The suit seeks recovery of an unspecified amount of damages for alleged breaches of fiduciary duty by Ocwen Financial Corporation’s officers and directors, which were allegedly aided and abetted by Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. and other defendants. Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on November 9, 2015. While that motion was pending, additional lawsuits alleging similar claims for alleged breaches of fiduciary duties by current or former Ocwen Financial Corporation officers and directors were filed in or transferred to the Court. The Court subsequently consolidated these actions and denied Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A.’s motion to dismiss the Sokolowski complaint without prejudice to re-file following appointment of lead counsel for the consolidated action and the filing or designation of an operative complaint. Lead counsel for plaintiffs filed their Consolidated Verified Shareholder Derivative Complaint (the “Consolidated Complaint”) on March 8, 2016. The Consolidated Complaint alleges claims that Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A., its subsidiary Beltline Road Insurance Agency, Inc. and other defendants aided and abetted alleged breaches of fiduciary duties by Ocwen Financial Corporation officers and directors and/or were unjustly enriched in connection with business dealings with Ocwen Financial Corporation. The Consolidated Complaint also seeks contribution from Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A., its subsidiary Beltline Road Insurance Agency, Inc. and other defendants for amounts Ocwen Financial Corporation paid in connection with a settlement with the New York State Department of Financial Services. The current deadline for defendants to respond to the Consolidated Complaint is May 13, 2016. Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. and Beltline Road Insurance Agency, Inc. intend to vigorously defend the lawsuit and to move to dismiss all claims against them.

On March 26, 2015, Robert Moncavage, an alleged shareholder of Ocwen Financial Corporation, filed an amended shareholder derivative complaint in the Circuit Court of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in and for Palm Beach County, Florida against Ocwen Financial Corporation (as a nominal defendant), certain of its current or former officers and directors, Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. and other companies. The suit seeks recovery of an unspecified amount of damages for alleged breaches of fiduciary duties by the current or former Ocwen Financial Corporation officers and directors, which were allegedly aided and abetted by Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. and other defendants. On November 9, 2015, the Court entered an order staying all proceedings in the case pending further order of the Court. If the litigation proceeds, Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. intends to vigorously defend the lawsuit and to move to dismiss all claims against it.

Altisource is unable to predict the outcomes of these lawsuits or reasonably estimate the potential loss, if any, arising from the suits, given that the forthcoming motions to dismiss in the second and third cases have not yet been adjudicated, a stay has been entered in the third case and significant legal and factual issues remain to be determined in all three cases.

In addition to the matters referenced above, we are involved in legal actions in the course of our business, some of which seek monetary damages. We do not believe that the outcome of these proceedings, both individually and in the aggregate, will have a material impact on our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

Regulatory Matters
Periodically, we are subject to audits, examinations and investigations by federal, state and local governmental authorities and receive subpoenas, civil investigative demands or other requests for information from such governmental authorities in connection with their regulatory or investigative authority. We are currently responding to such inquiries from governmental authorities relating to certain aspects of our business. We believe it is premature to predict the potential outcome or to estimate any potential financial impact in connection with these inquiries.
Ocwen Related Matters

Ocwen is our largest customer and 56% of our revenue for the three months ended March 31, 2016 was from Ocwen. Additionally, 19% of our revenue for the three months ended March 31, 2016 was earned on the portfolios serviced by Ocwen, when a party other than Ocwen selected Altisource as the service provider.

Ocwen has disclosed that it is subject to a number of ongoing federal and state regulatory examinations, consent orders, inquiries, requests for information and other actions and is subject to pending legal proceedings that have or could result in adverse regulatory or other actions against Ocwen. While not all inclusive, regulatory actions to date have included subjecting Ocwen to independent oversight of its operations and placing certain restrictions on its ability to acquire servicing rights. Ocwen may become subject to future federal and state regulatory investigations, inquiries, requests for information and legal proceedings, any of which could also result in adverse regulatory or other actions against Ocwen.

As a result of the sale of substantially all of the assets of HLSS to NRZ in April of 2015, NRZ owns the rights to approximately 78% of Ocwen’s non-government-sponsored enterprise (“non-GSE”) servicing rights as of December 31, 2015. Under an agreement between NRZ and Ocwen, NRZ has the right (not necessarily the ability) to transfer servicing away from Ocwen if Ocwen fails to achieve and maintain certain minimum servicer ratings on or after April 6, 2017.

Ocwen has also disclosed that in 2015 certain bondholders of Ocwen-serviced residential mortgage-backed securities (“RMBS”) alleged that Ocwen, as servicer defaulted on these servicing agreements. Ocwen has further disclosed that it has been directed by the trustee for two of the RMBS trusts to transfer servicing to another loan servicing company based on rating downgrades. Additional bondholders of RMBS may attempt to replace Ocwen as servicer as a result of such ratings downgrades or the alleged defaults.

All of the foregoing may have significant adverse effects on Ocwen’s business and our continuing relationships with Ocwen. For example, Ocwen may be required to alter the way it conducts business, including the parties it contracts with for services (including information technology and software services), it may be required to seek changes to its existing pricing structure with us, it may lose or sell some or all of its non-GSE servicing rights or subservicing arrangements or may lose one or more of its state servicing licenses. Additional regulatory actions may impose additional restrictions on or require changes in Ocwen’s business that could require it to sell assets or change its business operations. Any or all of these effects could result in our eventual loss of Ocwen as a customer or a reduction in the number and/or volume of services they purchase from us or the loss of other customers.

If any of the following events occurred, Altisource’s revenue would be significantly lower and our results of operations would be materially adversely affected, including from the possible impairment or write-off of goodwill, intangible assets, property and equipment, other assets and accounts receivable:

Altisource loses Ocwen as a customer or there is a significant reduction in the volume of services they purchase from us
Ocwen loses or sells a significant portion or all of its non-GSE servicing rights or subservicing arrangements and Altisource fails to be retained as a service provider
Ocwen loses state servicing licenses in states with a significant number of loans in Ocwen’s servicing portfolio
Altisource fails to be retained as a service provider
The contractual relationship between Ocwen and Altisource changes significantly or there are significant changes to our pricing to Ocwen for services from which we generate material revenue

Management cannot predict the outcome of the Ocwen Related Matters or the impact they may have on Altisource. However, in the event these Ocwen Related Matters materially negatively impact Altisource, we believe the impact to Altisource would occur over an extended period of time and the variable nature of our cost structure would allow us to realign our cost structure in line with remaining revenue.

In this regard, we have a plan that we believe would allow us to efficiently execute on this realignment. We believe that transfers of Ocwen’s servicing rights to a successor servicer(s) would take an extended period of time because of the approval required from many parties, including regulators, rating agencies, RMBS trustees, lenders and others. During this period of time, we believe we would continue to generate revenue from the services we provide to the transferred portfolio. Additionally, we have several growth initiatives that focus on diversifying and growing our revenue and customer base. Our major growth initiatives include:

Continue to grow our Servicer Solutions business
Continue to grow our Origination Solutions business
Continue to grow our Consumer Real Estate Solutions business
Continue to grow our Real Estate Investor Solutions business

We have an established sales and marketing strategy to support each of these initiatives.

Management believes our plans, together with current liquidity and cash flows from operations will be sufficient to meet working capital, capital expenditures, debt service and other cash needs. However, there can be no assurance that our plans would be successful or our operations would be profitable.

Escrow and Trust Balances 

We hold customers’ assets in escrow and trust accounts at various financial institutions pending completion of certain real estate activities.  We also hold cash in trust accounts at various financial institutions where contractual obligations mandate maintaining dedicated bank accounts for our Financial Services segment’s collections.  These amounts are held in escrow and trust accounts for limited periods of time and are not included in the condensed consolidated balance sheets.  Amounts held in escrow and trust accounts were $63.8 million and $66.6 million at March 31, 2016 and December 31, 2015, respectively.