Justice Department lawyers want to extract the largest possible penalty from Bank of America after a Charlotte, NC, jury found in October that its Countrywide Financial Corp. division committed fraud when it sold toxic mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, according to court papers filed earlier this month.In its successful civil suit against BofA, the DOJ and the Securities and Exchange Commission estimated that the two GSEs lost some $850 million from thousands of loans acquired through CFC’s “Hustle” program between August 2007 and May 2008. BofA acquired Countrywide in 2008 and is liable for the fraud.

Republicans on Capitol Hill might be laying the groundwork for legislation that could scale back the application of the disparate impact theory of legal liability in mortgage lending. Currently, there is no active legislation to that effect pending in the U.S. House of Representatives or the Senate, and industry lobbyists said there is no such interest underfoot. But just the fact that the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing this week on disparate impact in general had some Democrat supporters of the theory a bit anxious. “My hope is...

In a sign of just how serious the CFPB is about steering and loan-compensation issues, the bureau last week pressed Castle & Cooke Mortgage LLC into a settlement involving $9 million in restitution and $4 million in civil penalties to resolve allegations the firm and two of its executives paid illegal bonuses for steering consumers into costlier mortgages. The CFPB alleged that Castle & Cooke, through actions taken by its president, Matthew Pineda, and senior vice-president of capital markets, Buck Hawkins, violated the...

Once again, the Supreme Court of the United States has been denied an opportunity to weigh in and potentially set a national standard over the question of whether disparate impact cases can be brought under the Fair Housing Act, and perhaps the Equal Credit Opportunity Act as well. Late last week – just three weeks before oral arguments were set to be presented to the nation’s highest court – the Mount Holly town council voted to approve the settlement in Township of Mount Holly v. Mt. Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, Inc. The case...

A Manhattan district court judge dismissed a lawsuit against Bank of America in which shareholders accused the bank of hiding a $10 billion fraud case, saying the defendant and several of its top executives were not obliged to reveal the lawsuit in advance to shareholders. Filed in 2011, the shareholders alleged that CEO Brian Moynihan and other BofA executives knew as early as February 2011 that insurer AIG intended to sue BofA in connection with $28 billion of MBS it bought from the bank and its Countrywide and Merrill Lynch acquisitions. According to the shareholders, the bank knew...

RBS Securities agreed to settle charges levelled by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the underwriter mislead investors in a $2.2 billion subprime mortgage-backed security offered in 2007. “RBS knew or should have known at the time that almost 30 percent of the loans backing the offering deviated so much from the lender’s underwriting guidelines that they should have been kicked out of the offering entirely,” the SEC said of Soundview Home Loan Trust 2007-OPT1. The mortgages in question were ...

The FHA is working to create a quality-assurance framework with enhanced reporting built around QA results as well as a refined approach to identifying underwriting defects, according to a top agency official. There is much uncertainty in the mortgage market today and one way to address that is to create a clear framework for lenders explaining FHA’s view of underwriting defects, how they are defined as well as their consequences, said Charles Coulter, deputy assistant secretary for housing with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Speaking at the recent Mortgage Bankers Association annual convention, Coulter said the ...

Recapitalization of RMIC Will Pave the Way for a Return to MI Market. Old Republic International (ORI) is planning to recapitalize its mortgage guaranty subsidiary, RMIC Companies, Inc., which could resume underwriting in early 2014. Old Republic plans to contribute up to $50 million of new capital and raise additional funds, which would allow RMIC and its subsidiaries to fully support existing policies, pay off deferred claim obligations, exit state supervision, and resume underwriting new business early next year. The cash infusion would require ...

U.S. Bank, as trustee for a mortgage loan trust, has sued Citigroup in New York state court to force the financial giant to cure or repurchase defective loans from a securitized pool. In a separate case, a federal court in New York dismissed a shareholder action against Citigroup in connection with certain residential MBS. At issue in the first case is a pool of 4,792 mortgage loans that Citigroup Global Markets Realty Corp. purchased and securitized in May 2007. Citigroup sold the loans to Citigroup Mortgage Loan Trust, which, in turn, deposited the loans into the trust and assigned its rights to U.S. Bank. The trust then issued the MBS. According to the court summons and notice, Citigroup conducted...