JPMorgan, RBS Sued by Federal Agency Over Mortgage Bonds

Massachusetts Attorney General Signals Likelihood of Nixing “50 State” Mortgage Settlement

The banks in settlement talks with state and federal officials are seeking broad releases to protect them from legal claims. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said yesterday she won’t support an agreement that includes releases for securitization of mortgages and conduct related to a database of mortgages known as MERS.

“Massachusetts will not sign on to any global agreement with the banks if it includes a comprehensive liability release regarding securitization and the MERS conduct,” Coakley wrote to the Norfolk County register of deeds in Dedham, Massachusetts. “These investigations must continue.” The registry keeps real estate records.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/...+capitalism%29

This Is Considered Punishment?

surprising news that the Federal Reserve has issued a cease-and-desist order against a Too-Big-to-Fail bank. The bank was Wells Fargo, which was also fined $85 million and ordered to compensate customers it had unfairly — indeed, illegally — taken advantage of during the subprime bubble.

What made the news surprising, of course, was that the Federal Reserve has rarely, if ever, taken action against a bank for making predatory loans. Alan Greenspan, the former Fed chairman, didn’t believe in regulation and turned a blind eye to subprime abuses. His successor, Ben Bernanke, is not the ideologue that Greenspan is, but, as an institution, the Fed prefers to coddle banks rather than punish them. That the Fed would crack down on Wells Fargo would seem to suggest a long-overdue awakening.

Yet, for anyone still hoping for justice in the wake of the financial crisis, the news was hardly encouraging. First, the Fed did not force Wells Fargo to admit guilt — and even let the company issue a press release blaming its wrongdoing on a “relatively small group.” The $85 million fine was a joke; in just the last quarter, Wells Fargo’s revenues exceeded $20 billion. And compensating borrowers isn’t going to hurt much either. By my calculation, it won’t top $20 million.

Most upsetting of all, the settlement raises the question that just won’t go away: Why can’t the federal government prosecute financial wrongdoers?

I realize that the Federal Reserve can’t bring a criminal case (and, to be fair, there are statutory limits on how big a fine it can levy). But the Justice Department certainly can. Yet ever since it lost an early case against two Bear Stearns fund managers in 2009, it has gone after only the smallest of small fry: individual borrowers, brokers and appraisers who lack the means to do much more than plead guilty.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/op...gewanted=print

Wells Fargo Target Of Justice Department Probe; Agency Alleges Discriminatory Lending

The Department of Justice is preparing a lawsuit against Wells Fargo, the nation's largest home mortgage lender, for allegedly preying upon African American borrowers during the housing bubble and steering them into high-cost subprime loans, according to three people with direct knowledge of the probe.

The company, the fourth-largest U.S. bank by assets, is currently embroiled in pre-lawsuit negotiations with the Justice Department in hopes it will settle the accusations and avoid a public lawsuit

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0...comm_ref=false

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This is a REGULATED bank

Right-wingers, tell us again how CRA, F&F were the overwhelming, only?, causes of the housing bubble?

A W-F is regulated, the vast number of subprime mortgages were initiated by non-bank lenders and non-regulated subsidiaries of regulated banks, created specifically get into the non-prime market.

CRA? F & F? G M A F B, you Wall St shills.

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CRAF&F?GMAFB

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Internal Doc Reveals GMAC Filed False Document in Bid to Foreclose


GMAC, one of the nation's largest mortgage servicers, faced a quandary last summer. It wanted to foreclose on a New York City homeowner but lacked the crucial paperwork needed to seize the property.

GMAC has a standard solution to such problems, which arise frequently in the post-bubble economy. Its employees secure permission to create and sign documents in the name of companies that made the original loans. But this case was trickier because the lender, a notorious subprime company named Ameriquest, had gone out of business in 2007.

And so GMAC, which was bailed out by taxpayers in 2008, began looking for a way to craft a document that would pass legal muster, internal records obtained by ProPublica show.

"The problem is we do not have signing authority—are there any other options?" Jeffrey Stephan, the head of GMAC's "Document Execution" team, wrote to another employee and the law firm pursuing the foreclosure action. No solutions were offered.

Three months later, GMAC had an answer. It filed a document with New York City authorities that said the delinquent Ameriquest loan had been assigned to it "effective of" August 2005. The document was dated July 7, 2010, three years after Ameriquest had ceased to exist and was signed by Stephan, who was identified as a "Limited Signing Officer" for Ameriquest Mortgage Company. Soon after, GMAC filed for foreclosure.

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Yep, CRA, F&F was right there with GMAC every fraudulent step of the way. :lol

Will GMAC "settle"?

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

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CRAF&F?GMAFB

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Does it matter? Looks who's saying it.

Cra

f&f

gmafb

gfy, wc, wh

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

Cra

f&f

gmafb

gfy, wc, wh

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lol @ babytalk.:lol

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Originally Posted by TeyshaBlue

lol @ babytalk.:lol

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Uh-oh. Syntax errors. Looks like the boutons-bot needs a reboot. :)

community reinvestmeant act

fanny and freddy

go fuck yourself

I have little respect for people who still try to save texting space when unnecessary.

I didn't know we have a 160 character limitation...

With few exceptions, I say we should all use full words. To do otherwise is being lazy.

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

I have little respect for people who still try to save texting space when unnecessary.

I didn't know we have a 160 character limitation...

With few exceptions, I say we should all use full words. To do otherwise is being lazy.

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I dnt tnk nebody givs a sht tbh

State Accuses Bank of America Unit of Thousands of Illegal Foreclosures

State Attorney General Rob McKenna has accused a Bank of America unit of conducting thousands of illegal foreclosures in Washington, in which he said the company had confused homeowners, made it nearly impossible to save their homes, and failed to act as a neutral third party.

McKenna sued ReconTrust, a California-based foreclosure trustee, in King County Superior Court Thursday.

The lawsuit alleges that the Bank of America subsidiary has violated state laws in "each and every foreclosure" in Washington. Since 2008, ReconTrust, which forecloses statewide, has done 9,900 foreclosures in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties alone.

"ReconTrust ignored our warnings, repeatedly broke the law and refused to provide information requested during our investigation," McKenna said in a statement Friday.

"ReconTrust's illegal practices make it difficult, if not impossible, for borrowers who might have a shot at saving their homes to stop those foreclosures."

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/artic...#ixzz1URKtWfqw

Federal probes of mortgage lenders fizzle

Federal criminal investigations into failed mortgage lenders IndyMac Bancorp and New Century Financial Corp have stalled, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

A third probe, into Washington Mutual Inc (WaMu), has ended with no charges being filed, the Department of Justice said.

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Both the IndyMac and Century Financial investigations were essentially dormant, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the situation. Both probes could still gain new momentum if fresh evidence surfaced, the newspaper said.

The three investigations were among the first to weigh criminal charges against the companies and executives at the heart of the housing crisis, which was in part caused by offering so-called sub-prime loans to people who may not have otherwise qualified for credit.

Investigators have struggled to prove intentional wrongdoing, which is required to secure a conviction, particularly in relation to decisions signed off by in-house lawyers, the newspaper said, citing its sources.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...,3126175.story

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Excellent templates for criminals to follow in the future.

More Bank of America Deathwatch: AIG to Seek $10+ Billion for Dud Mortgages

As you may recall, in the previous quarter, Bank of America announced its $8.5 billion mortgage settlement, which is now looking pretty wobbly, since a variety of unhappy parties, the latest being New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman, have taken aim at it. And Delaware attorney general Beau Biden is reported to be joining the pile on this week. This means either no deal, or a very different deal (almost certainly with bigger numbers attached) after a long slugfest, um, negotiations. The Charlotte bank had said it would increase loss reserves in the second quarter by $20 billion (which included this $8.5 billion) and claimed this would put its mortgage woes behind them. Yours truly was skeptical, and the market reacted badly when it saw the revelation in their 10-Q filing just released, that the bank was going to take more losses on Fannie and Freddie putbacks than previously expected.

The latest revelation, that AIG is expected to file a suit that will seek more than $10 billion in damages against Bank of America on Monday, comes from Louise Story and Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times:

The American International Group is planning to sue Bank of America over hundreds of mortgage-backed securities, adding to the surge of investors seeking compensation for the troubled mortgages that led to the financial crisis.

The suit seeks to recover more than $10 billion in losses on $28 billion of investments, in possibly the largest mortgage-security-related action filed by a single investor.

It claims that Bank of America and its Merrill Lynch and Countrywide Financial units misrepresented the quality of the mortgages placed in securities and sold to investors.

Note that this is yet another representation and warranty suit, the very same type of liability that BofA was trying to extinguish in its $8.5 billion settlement. Clearly BofA thinks that the amount of the settlement, which looks to be 3.5% of the estimated liability, is a little light(some of the aggrieved parties say the liability across all of the 530 pools included in the settlement is $242 billion). MBS rep and warranty cases have never gone to trial, since they are too costly to perfect (they wind up being fought on a loan by loan basis, even if sampling is done, since the plaintiff must not only establish that the loans were worse than promised, but also that they went bad because they were substandard, not because the borrower lost his job or suffered a medical emergency or had some other “shit happens” normal underwriting loss).

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/...+capitalism%29

Why Are the Big Banks Getting Off Scot-Free?

For most citizens, one of the mysteries of life after the crisis is why such a massive act of looting has gone unpunished. We’ve had hearings, investigations, and numerous journalistic and academic post mortems. We’ve also had promises to put people in jail by prosecutors like Iowa’s attorney general Tom Miller walked back virtually as soon as they were made.

Yet there is undeniable evidence of institutionalized fraud, such as widespread document fabrication in foreclosures (mentioned in the motion filed by New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman opposing the $8.5 billion Bank of America settlement with investors) and the embedding of impermissible charges (known as junk fees and pyramiding fees) in servicing software, so that someone who misses a mortgage payment or two is almost certain to see it escalate into a foreclosure. And these come on top of a long list of runup-to-the-crisis abuses, including mortgage bonds having more dodgy loans in them than they were supposed to, banks selling synthetic or largely synthetic collateralized debt obligations as being just the same as ones made of real bonds when the synthetics were created for the purpose of making bets against the subprime market and selling BBB risk at largely AAA prices, and of course, phony accounting at the banks themselves.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/...+capitalism%29

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/gl...aud/index.html

15 former investors sue over Countrywide lending practices


Bank of America Corp. was sued by 15 former Countrywide Financial Corp institutional investors who said they lost money after being misled about the mortgage lender's financial condition and lending practices.

BlackRock Inc., the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), T Rowe Price Group Inc., TIAA-CREF and the other plaintiffs, including some in Europe, sued in Los Angeles federal court, after deciding not to join a $624 million settlement that won court approval in February.

These plaintiffs believed they could recover more by suing on their own over the "massive and pervasive" fraud at Countrywide, which Bank of America bought July 1, 2008.

Thursday's lawsuit deepens the legal problems for Bank of America over Countrywide, for which it paid $2.5 billion. Analysts have estimated that its ultimate cost, including legal bills and loan losses, could exceed 10 times that sum.

Last month, the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank entered an $8.5 billion agreement to end most litigation by investors who bought securities backed by risky Countrywide home loans. Some of those investors have complained this agreement too may be unfair.

According to the 425-page complaint by the 15 plaintiffs, Countrywide and officials such as former Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo abandoned prudent lending, reserved too little for bad loans and inflated earnings, in a drive to triple market share to 30 percent and enrich themselves.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...,7652641.story

(whiff)

Blackrock, Calpers are heavy hitters. Their legal beagles must have told them that they had a case (or maybe the legal beagles are also screwing them with fraudulent legal products).

But as always, any "settlement" will be against a Corporate-American, while human criminals will go "scot-free" with the pockets stuff full.

Highlighting the actions of Delaware AG Beau Biden.

Bank Of America Has Activist Arrested For Telling It About Dangerous Vacant Homes It Owns

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/...08/goddard.jpg

Two weeks ago, the Chicago city council passed a new statute that “will make lenders liable for the upkeep of vacant homes even when the borrower still holds the title.” The law was passed unanimously and will take effect in September. The importance of this new law came into focus last week when two firefighters were injured battling a fire that sprung up in a vacant home in the Englewood neighborhood on the south side of Chicago.

As Aaron Krager notes, this outraged activists from Action Now, a local community group. Marsha Goddard, who is a board member of the organization, led a group of five people to a local branch of Bank of America, which owned the vacant property, to inform the bank about code violations that it would be liable for when the law goes into effect.

The megabank responded by having Goddard arrested.


http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...rica-activist/

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

Highlighting the actions of Delaware AG Beau Biden.

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hot dam! Another blue state kickin ass.

Any bubba red states gonna join in?

Or will the Repug states let their bubbas asses get terminally kicked by the Banksters?

Repugs, governing for ALL Americans ..... who are wealthy. :lol

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

"If we didn't have politicians bailing them out with our money"

Wall Streeters, current/past/future, decided/extorted the bailout. Place the guilt and crime where it belongs. Wall St does the corrupting, not Congress.

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To be a Corrupter one need a Corruptee. If Congress were even slightly incorruptible, wouldn't matter who was doing the corrupting. Further, if Congress/US Govt. didn't have such vast powers - if they were even a little bit restricted on what they could do with our money - their corruption would be much less relevant. Finally, there is nothing you or I can about the greedy people on Wal Street; we can, however, recognize the power we have by changing Washington. If we keep getting distracted by bogeymen we can do nothing about; they win.

"If Congress were even slightly incorruptible"

GMAFB.

Even if a naive, virgin Congress person (who can be innocent and naive after getting through the cesspool of winning an election?), the SYSTEM IS CORRUPTED beyond remediation.

"the power we have by changing Washington"

GMAFB. Human-Americans have NO POWER in DC, they are totally disenfranchised. UCA and capitalists pay those pipers, and UCA and capitalists call the tunes.

The top 5% have amassed such wealth, and the self-enriching/protecting power that flows from that wealth, have compromised/bought the only countervailing power (government), that there is no way short of violent revolution to Take Back That Power.

People with such power never yield it, and ALWAYS abuse it.

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

People with such power never yield it, and ALWAYS abuse it.

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Which is why limited government is essential.