The city of Cleveland, Ohio is suing 21 financial institutions for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages caused by subprime lending and securitization. The defendants named in the lawsuit are:
• Deutsche Bank Trust Company • Ameriquest Mortgage Company • Bank of America Corporation • The Bear Stearns Companies • Citigroup, Inc.
• Countrywide Financial Corp.
• Credit Suisse (USA)
• Fremont General Corporation • GMAC-RFC • Goldman Sachs Group • Greenwich Capital Markets, Inc.
• HSBC Holdings, PLC • Indymac Bancorp., Inc.
• J.P. Morgan Chase Co.
• Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc.
• Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.
• Morgan Stanley • Novastar Financial Inc.
• Option One Mortgage Corporation • Washington Mutual Inc.
• Wells Fargo & Co.
The city of Cleveland says that the defendants issued loans to people who would never have been able to pay them back and that the foreclosures were inevitable. The lawsuit says that not only did the financial institutions issue loans to ill-qualified borrowers, but they securitized the loans and used the profits to fund more subprime mortgages, make more money, and secure more borrowers.
In the past two years, Cleveland has experienced over 7,000 foreclosures. Entire city blocks have been vacated and violent crime and arson incidents have increased. 1,000 abandoned homes have been torn down. Cleveland is calling the “propagation of subprime mortgages… and the corresponding foreclosures… a public nuisance as defined by Ohio common law.
As a result, the city of Cleveland’s population was 444,000 last year-way down from its nearly one million residents in 1950. The decrease in population size has negatively affected the city’s budget.
The stockbroker law firm of Shepherd Smith and Edwards represents investors who have lost money due to the misconduct or negligent actions of broker-dealers and other financial institutions. Contact Shepherd Smith and Edwards today and one of our stockbroker fraud lawyers will be happy to offer you a free consultation.