Lawsuit looks to turn UWM ‘All In’ success against mortgage lender

A new ling in a lawsuit brought by a Florida mortgage broker states that the increasing market share of United Wholesale Mortgage serves as evidence of the Pontiac-based company’s monopolist tendencies.

e wholesale mortgage company (NYSE: UWMC) last year emerged as the nation’s largest lender in terms of volume, overtaking cross-town rival Rocket Mortgage.

at growth, and the way that UWM CEO Mat Ishbia has touted it, proves the company has a “dangerous probability of achieving monopoly power,” according to a proposed supplemental complaint led late last month in a Florida federal court by attorneys for e O’Kavage Group LLC, an independent mortgage broker based in St. Augustine, Fla. e initial complaint by O’Kavage was brought nearly two years ago, in the wake of Ishbia announcing the so-called “All In” initiative in which he barred independent mortgage brokers who wish to do business with UWM from working with Rocket or Madison, Wis.-based Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp. ose companies were doing damage to the wholesale channel, Ishbia has claimed.

“Ishbia recently attributed UWM’s growth in share to his ultimatum that brokers cease using Rocket and Fairway in order to use UWM, because under those circumstances, brokers felt they had to choose UWM,” the supplemental complaint states.

A federal judge in Florida recently ordered the parties to identify a mediator for the case.

UWM, in its most recent earnings report in early March, touted that the company had achieved 11 percent total market share in the industry and 54 percent market share of the wholesale channel, where UWM has long been the dominant lender.