This presentation was made at the BuckleySandler "Fair Lending Today" conference in Washington DC on April 23, 2009. Ms. Negroni addresses these questions: "If there are so many federal and state anti-predatory lending laws and consumer protection laws, why does predatory lending continue? Why aren't 10-20 years' worth of laws more effective in preventing abuses and reducing the incidence of foreclosures facing subprime borrowers? Why are non-white subprime borrowers so much more impacted by the mortgage crisis than their white counterparts when statistics show that the majority of subprime loans are made to white borrowers?

The presentation addresses steps state regulators have taken, and failed to take, to address subprime lending and the limitations of many anti-predatory lending laws. In particular, Ms. Negroni faults state regulators for piling on mandatory disclosures, which are frequently overlooked by borrowers, and for failing to use available data to predict default and foreclosure rates for minority borrowers. She predicted the tidal wave of private litigation that has occurred since the start of the housing and financial crisis, much of which may have been avoided had the state regulators used information available to them to take more meaningful steps to prevent predatory lending. The shorthand "PL" refers to predatory lending, "APL" refers to anti-predatory lending laws, and "SP" refers to subprime loans in this 9-page speech with legal citations.