49 Fifth, it is a violation of the NRMLA Code of Ethics for a NRMLA Member to require or suggest that a product or service (such an annuity or investment product or life or long-term care insurance), other than the reverse mortgage loan, also must be purchased in order to obtain the reverse mortgage loan, or if such product or service (if offered by the NRMLA Member) may not, itself, provide a bona fide advantage to the consumer, or if the NRMLA Member’s compensation in connection with all such products and services is unreasonable in amount or not clearly and timely described to the consumer. Sixth, it is a violation of the NRMLA Code of Ethics for a NRMLA Member to market or advertise to a business partner unreasonably high compensation, even if such compensation clearly and timely is disclosed to the consumer who pays it directly or through reverse mortgage loan proceeds. Again, this effectively is the “law” of reverse mortgage Ethical Advertising (as enforced by their own trade association’s Code of Ethics and the Committee) that expressly has been applicable to NRMLA Members since early 2008. In the intervening years, as well, the Committee returned, repeatedly, to the requirement that all NRMLA Members engage only in Ethical Advertising practices, as described in the Code of Ethics. Fourteen months later, for example, on June 16, 2009, the Committee issued Ethics Advisory Opinion 2009-2 (Lead Generation State Licensing Requirements and Ethical Advertising). In that Opinion, the Committee made plain its intent fully to enforce the provisions of the Code of Ethics against NRMLA Members that engage in Unethical Advertising, even indirectly, through the actions of the lead generation companies they engage to provide senior reverse mortgage leads to them. It stated: NRMLA Members may not engage in conduct violative of the NRMLA Code of Ethics, including but not limited to providing Lead Generation services, either directly or indirectly through Lead Generation Providers that do not themselves comply with the provisions of law and of the NRMLA Code of Ethics applicable to them. Lead generation services provided in a manner that does not comply with applicable law and, with respect to NRMLA Members, provisions of the NRMLA Code and its Ethics Advisory Opinions, are inconsistent with the Values of our industry and the interests of the seniors they serve. Those engaged in such conduct have no place in NRMLA. NRMLA Members, consumers, and others are urged to bring to the attention of NRMLA’s President and the Committee concerns they may have about potential unethical lead generation services (emphasis added) . . . . On October 15, 2010, the Committee, through Ethics Advisory Opinion 2010-2, described “Additional Ethical Advertising Practice Requirements.” In that Ethics Advisory Opinion, the Committee “expressly re-affirmed” the Ethical Advertising interpretations of the Code of Ethics of its previously published Opinions (including its earlier listing of the “dirty half-dozen” of Unethical Advertising practices), and re-emphasized that it would continue to take vigorous action against NRMLA Members and others who failed to conform to these requirements. To underscore that point, the Committee, through Ethics Advisory Opinion 2010-2, added a description of six additional practices it had determined also constituted Unethical Advertising, bringing its listed total, through that date, to an even “dirty dozen” of Unethical Advertising practices. It stated:
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