Bankruptcy filings for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2008, totaled 901,927, according to statistics released by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.  Cases filed in that period were up by 30 percent over the 695,575 cases filed in the 12-month period ending March 31, 2007.

Former Bank of America manager Walter Jones pleaded guilty to depositing nearly $18 million in fraudulent “refund” checks in a tax embezzlement scheme described as “the biggest municipal fraud in memory in the Washington area” by The Washington Post.

Reform of the credit rating industry has been a popular cause since the mortgage crisis revealed shortcomings in how the rating agencies dealt with mortgage-backed securities.  The latest reform proposal is a bill by Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), the Credit Rating Agency Transparency and Disclosure Act.

Credit cards and overdraft services are the targets of a major new regulatory effort. The three agencies that define unfair or deceptive acts or practices for depository institutions — the Federal Reserve Board, Office of Thrift Supervision, and the National Credit Union Administration — have jointly proposed a new regulation to declare a number of common practices to be violations of the Federal Trade Commission Act. The proposal targets practices that the agencies say “have raised concern about fairness and transparency.”