NOTE 14—COMMITMENTS, CONTINGENCIES, GUARANTEES AND OTHERS

Commitments to Lend

Our unfunded lending commitments primarily consist of credit card lines, loan commitments to customers of both our Commercial Banking and Consumer Banking businesses, as well as standby and commercial letters of credit. These commitments, other than credit card lines, are legally binding conditional agreements that have fixed expirations or termination dates and specified interest rates and purposes. The contractual amount of these commitments represents the maximum possible credit risk to us should the counterparty draw upon the commitment. We generally manage the potential risk of unfunded lending commitments by limiting the total amount of arrangements, monitoring the size and maturity structure of these portfolios and applying the same credit standards for all of our credit activities.

For unused credit card lines, we have not experienced and do not anticipate that all of our customers will access their entire available line at any given point in time. Commitments to extend credit other than credit card lines generally require customers to maintain certain credit standards. Collateral requirements and loan-to-value (“LTV”) ratios are the same as those for funded transactions and are established based on management’s credit assessment of the customer. These commitments may expire without being drawn upon; therefore, the total commitment amount does not necessarily represent future funding requirements.

We also issue letters of credit, such as financial standby, performance standby and commercial letters of credit, to meet the financing needs of our customers. Standby letters of credit are conditional commitments issued by us to guarantee the performance of a customer to a third party in a borrowing arrangement. Commercial letters of credit are short-term commitments issued primarily to facilitate trade finance activities for customers and are generally collateralized by the goods being shipped to the client. These collateral requirements are similar to those for funded transactions and are established based on management’s credit assessment of the customer. Management conducts regular reviews of all outstanding letters of credit and the results of these reviews are considered in assessing the adequacy of reserves for unfunded lending commitments.

The following table presents contractual amount and carrying value of our unfunded lending commitments as of June 30, 2018 and December 31, 2017. The carrying value represents our reserve and deferred revenue on legally binding commitments.

Table 14.1: Unfunded Lending Commitments: Contractual Amount and Carrying Value



	Contractual Amount				Carrying Value
(Dollars in millions)	June 30, 2018		December 31, 2017		June 30, 2018		December 31, 2017
Credit card lines	$	336,003	$	351,481	N/A		N/A
Other loan commitments⁽¹⁾	31,983		31,840		$	80	$	84
Standby letters of credit and commercial letters of credit⁽²⁾	1,909		2,046		40		43
Total unfunded lending commitments	$	369,895	$	385,367	$	120	$	127

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⁽¹⁾	Includes $973 million and $1.0 billion of advised lines of credit as of June 30, 2018 and December 31, 2017, respectively.


⁽²⁾	These financial guarantees have expiration dates ranging from 2018 to 2025 as of June 30, 2018.

Loss Sharing Agreements and Other Obligations

Within our Commercial Banking business, we originate multifamily commercial real estate loans with the intent to sell them to the GSEs. We enter into loss sharing agreements with the GSEs upon the sale of the loans. At inception, we record a liability representing the fair value of our obligation which is subsequently amortized as we are released from risk of payment under the loss sharing agreement. If payment under the loss sharing agreement becomes probable and estimable, an additional liability may be recorded on the consolidated balance sheets and a non-interest expense may be recognized in the consolidated statements of income. The liability recognized on our consolidated balance sheets for our loss sharing agreements was $48 million and $60 million as of June 30, 2018 and December 31, 2017, respectively.

In the fourth quarter of 2017, we entered into an agreement with our third-party servicer under which we assumed the obligation to exercise the remaining clean-up calls as they become due on certain securitization transactions related to our discontinued manufactured housing operations of GreenPoint Credit, LLC, a subsidiary of GreenPoint. We also entered into a forward sale agreement pursuant to which we will sell the underlying loans to a third-party purchaser as the clean-up calls are exercised. Accordingly, we recognized loans held for sale and a corresponding liability on our consolidated balance sheets. Based on the current information and estimates, we expect that we will incur losses associated with this exposure and have recorded a liability of $69 million and $78 million as of June 30, 2018 and December 31, 2017, respectively. See “Note 6—Variable Interest Entities and Securitizations” for information related to these transactions.

U.K. Payment Protection Insurance

In the U.K., we previously sold payment protection insurance (“PPI”). In response to an elevated level of customer complaints across the industry, heightened media coverage and pressure from consumer advocacy groups, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”), formerly the Financial Services Authority, investigated and raised concerns about the way the industry has handled complaints related to the sale of these insurance policies. For the past several years, the U.K.’s Financial Ombudsman Service (“FOS”) has been adjudicating customer complaints relating to PPI, escalated to it by consumers who disagree with the rejection of their complaint by firms, leading to customer remediation payments by us and others within the industry. On March 2, 2017, the FCA issued a statement that sets out final rules and guidance on the PPI complaints deadline, which has been set as August 29, 2019. The statement also provides clarity on how to handle PPI complaints under s.140A of the Consumer Credit Act, including guidance on how redress for such complaints should be calculated. The final rules and guidance came into force on August 29, 2017.

In determining our best estimate of incurred losses for future remediation payments, management considers numerous factors, including (i) the number of customer complaints we expect in the future; (ii) our expectation of upholding those complaints; (iii) the expected number of complaints customers escalate to the FOS; (iv) our expectation of the FOS upholding such escalated complaints; (v) the number of complaints that fall under s.140A of the Consumer Credit Act; and (vi) the estimated remediation payout to customers. We monitor these factors each quarter and adjust our reserves to reflect the latest data.

Management’s best estimate of incurred losses related to U.K. PPI totaled $157 million and $249 million as of June 30, 2018 and December 31, 2017, respectively. For the six months ended June 30, 2018, we added $49 million to our reserve in response to sustained higher complaint volume. Other movements were due to a combination of utilization of the reserve through customer refund payments and foreign exchange movements. Our best estimate of reasonably possible future losses beyond our reserve as of June 30, 2018 is approximately $100 million.

Litigation

In accordance with the current accounting standards for loss contingencies, we establish reserves for litigation related matters that arise from the ordinary course of our business activities when it is probable that a loss associated with a claim or proceeding has been incurred and the amount of the loss can be reasonably estimated. None of the amounts we currently have recorded individually or in the aggregate are considered to be material to our financial condition. Litigation claims and proceedings of all types are subject to many uncertain factors that generally cannot be predicted with assurance. Below we provide a description of potentially material legal proceedings and claims.

For some of the matters disclosed below, we are able to estimate reasonably possible losses above existing reserves, and for other disclosed matters, such an estimate is not possible at this time. For those matters below where an estimate is possible, management currently estimates the reasonably possible future losses beyond our reserves as of June 30, 2018 is approximately $500 million, which includes estimates related to mortgage representation and warranty exposure. Our reserve and reasonably possible loss estimates involve considerable judgment and reflect that there is still significant uncertainty regarding numerous factors that may impact the ultimate loss levels. Notwithstanding our attempt to estimate a reasonably possible range of loss beyond our current accrual levels for some litigation matters based on current information, it is possible that actual future losses will exceed both the current accrual level and the range of reasonably possible losses disclosed here. Given the inherent uncertainties involved in these matters, especially those involving governmental agencies, and the very large or indeterminate damages sought in some of these matters, there is significant uncertainty as to the ultimate liability we may incur from these litigation matters and an adverse outcome in one or more of these matters could be material to our results of operations or cash flows for any particular reporting period.

Interchange

In 2005, a number of entities, each purporting to represent a class of retail merchants, filed antitrust lawsuits against MasterCard and Visa and several member banks, including our subsidiaries and us, alleging among other things, that the defendants conspired to fix the level of interchange fees. The complaints seek injunctive relief and civil monetary damages, which could be trebled. Separately, a number of large merchants have asserted similar claims against Visa and MasterCard only (together with the lawsuits described above, “Interchange Lawsuits”). In October 2005, the class and merchant Interchange Lawsuits were consolidated before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York for certain purposes, including discovery. In July 2012, the parties executed and filed with the court a Memorandum of Understanding agreeing to resolve the litigation on certain terms set forth in a settlement agreement attached to the Memorandum. The class settlement provides for, among other things, (i) payments by defendants to the class and individual plaintiffs totaling approximately $6.6 billion; (ii) a distribution to the class merchants of an amount equal to 10 basis points of certain interchange transactions for a period of eight months; and (iii) modifications to certain Visa and MasterCard rules regarding point of sale practices. In December 2013, the district court granted final approval of the proposed class settlement, which was appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in January 2014. On June 30, 2016, the Second Circuit vacated the district court’s certification of the class, reversed approval of the proposed class settlement, and remanded the litigation to the district court for further proceedings, ruling that some of the merchants that were part of the proposed class settlement were not adequately represented. Because the Second Circuit ruling remands the litigation to the district court for further proceedings, the ultimate outcome in this matter is uncertain. Several merchant plaintiffs also opted out of the class settlement before it was overturned, and some of those plaintiffs have sued MasterCard, Visa and various member banks, including Capital One. The opt-out cases are consolidated before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York for certain purposes, including discovery. Visa and MasterCard have settled a number of individual opt-out cases, requiring non-material payments from all banks, including Capital One. Separate settlement and judgment sharing agreements between Capital One, MasterCard and Visa allocate the liabilities of any judgment or settlement arising from the Interchange Lawsuits and associated opt-out cases. Visa created a litigation escrow account following its IPO of stock in 2008, which funds any settlements for its member banks, and any settlements related to MasterCard allocated losses are reflected in Capital One’s reserves.

Mortgage Representation and Warranty

We face residual exposure related to subsidiaries that originated residential mortgage loans and sold these loans to various purchasers, including purchasers who created securitization trusts. In connection with their sales of mortgage loans, these subsidiaries entered into agreements containing varying representations and warranties about, among other things, the ownership of the loan, the validity of the lien securing the loan, the loan’s compliance with any applicable criteria established by the purchaser, including underwriting guidelines and the existence of mortgage insurance, and the loan’s compliance with applicable federal, state and local laws. Each of these subsidiaries may be required to repurchase mortgage loans, or indemnify certain purchasers and others against losses they incur, in the event of certain breaches of these representations and warranties.

The substantial majority of our representation and warranty exposure has been resolved through litigation, and our remaining representation and warranty exposure is almost entirely litigation-related. Accordingly, we establish litigation reserves for representation and warranty losses that we consider to be both probable and reasonably estimable. The reserve process relies heavily on estimates, which are inherently uncertain, and requires the application of judgment. Our reserves and estimates of reasonably possible losses could be impacted by claims which may be brought by securitization trustees and sponsors, bond-insurers, investors, and GSEs, as well as claims brought by governmental agencies under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act (“FIRREA”), the False Claims Act or other federal or state statutes.

In May, June and July 2012, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (“FHFA”) (acting as conservator for Freddie Mac) filed three summonses with notice in the New York state court against GreenPoint, on behalf of the trustees for three RMBS trusts backed by loans originated by GreenPoint with an aggregate original principal balance of $3.4 billion. In January 2013, the plaintiffs filed an amended consolidated complaint in the name of the three trusts, acting by the respective trustees, alleging breaches of contractual representations and warranties regarding compliance with GreenPoint underwriting guidelines relating to certain loans (“FHFA Litigation”). Plaintiffs seek specific performance of the repurchase obligations with respect to the loans for which they have provided notice of alleged breaches as well as all other allegedly breaching loans, rescissory damages, indemnification, costs and interest. On March 29, 2017, the trial court granted GreenPoint’s motion for summary judgment and dismissed plaintiff’s claims as untimely. In May 2017, the plaintiff appealed the dismissal to the Second Circuit.

Anti-Money Laundering

Capital One is being investigated by the New York District Attorney’s Office (“NYDA”), the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) of the U.S. Department of Treasury with respect to certain former check casher clients of the Commercial Banking business and Capital One’s anti-money laundering (“AML”) program. Capital One is cooperating with all agencies involved in the investigation.

In addition, Capital One is subject to an open consent order with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) dated July 10, 2015 concerning regulatory deficiencies in our AML program.

Other Pending and Threatened Litigation

In addition, we are commonly subject to various pending and threatened legal actions relating to the conduct of our normal business activities. In the opinion of management, the ultimate aggregate liability, if any, arising out of all such other pending or threatened legal actions, is not expected to be material to our consolidated financial position or our results of operations.