Fidelity National Financial’s (FNF) legal battle with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) may soon be over, that is, if the court takes the recommendations of Magistrate Judge Samuel Horovitz. 

In a document filed last Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Horovitz recommended that the court grant FinCEN’s cross-motion for summary judgment, which would mean that FinCEN would win the suit and its Anti-Money Laundering Regulations for Residential Real Estate Transfers Rule would be upheld. 

Plaintiff FNF filed its motion for summary judgment in mid-August, while FinCEN filed its cross-motion for summary judgment in late September as part of its response to FNF’s motion. 

Filed in May 2025, the lawsuit lists FinCEN and its director, Andrea Gacki, as well as the Department of the Treasury and its secretary, Scott Bessent, as defendants. In the lawsuit, FNF claims that the rule, which was promulgated under the Biden administration, is “arbitrary and capricious,” and that the rule will cause it “irreparable harm.” 

The rule requires title firms to report specific details on all-cash home purchase transactions. These include the names, addresses, dates of birth, citizenship status and ID numbers of all people involved — including minors, payment details and information about trusts and entities that are purchasing the property.

Throughout the litigation process, FNF has argued that the rule goes beyond FinCEN’s legal authority and is overly broad and costly. Judge Horovitz disagrees with this, writing in his recommendation that under the Bank Secrecy Act, FinCEN has the clear authority to create rules designed to prevent money laundering at the federal level. According to the judge, FinCEN has shown that the rule is needed based on its experience with the prior Geographic Targeting Orders, and that despite FNF’s pushback, “suspicious transactions” is a defined category and not overly broad. Additionally, while the judge acknowledged that FinCEN did not consider the costs of implementing the rule, the law-enforcement-related benefits outweigh the costs of compliance. The judge also noted that the law does not require the benefits of a rule to be precisely quantified.

While this decision of the magistrate judge is not final or binding, it does strongly signal how the case may shake out unless Judge Wendy Berger, who is directly overseeing the suit, disagrees with Judge Horovitz’s position. 

In late September, FinCEN announced it was postponing the implementation of the policy from Dec. 1, 2025, to March 1, 2026. 

At the time, FinCEN said the decision was made to “reduce business burden and ensure effective regulation.”

The parties have not returned HousingWire’s request for comment.

More: