In U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, federal judge Manuel Real threw out five of the seven securities claims made by the Securities and Exchange Commission in its fraud lawsuit against ex-IndyMac Bancorp chief executive Michael Perry and former finance chief Scott
Keys. The Commission is accusing the two men of covering up the now failed California mortgage lender’s deteriorating liquidity position and capital in 2008. Real’s bench ruling dilutes the SEC’s lawsuit against the two men.
The Commission contends that Keys and Perry misled investors while trying to raise capital and preparing to sell $100 million in new stock before July 2008, which is when thrift regulators closed IndyMac Bank, F.S.B and the holding company filed for bankruptcy protection. They are accusing Perry of letting investors receive misleading or false statements about the company’s failing financial state that omitted material information. (S. Blair Abernathy, also a former IndyMac chief financial officer, had also been sued by the SEC. However, rather that fight the lawsuit, he chose to settle without denying or admitting to any wrongdoing.)
Attorneys for Perry and Keys had filed a motion for partial summary judgment, arguing that five of the seven filings that the SEC is targeting cannot support the claims. Real granted that motion last month, finding that IndyMac’s regulatory filings lacked any misleading or false statements to investors and did not leave out key information.
The remaining claims revolve around whether the bank properly disclosed in its 2008 first-quarter earnings report (and companion slideshow presentation) the financial hazards it was in at the time. The judge also ruled that Perry could not be made to pay back allegedly ill-gotten gains.
Real’s decision substantially narrows the Commission’s securities case against Perry and Keys. According to Reuters, the ruling also could potentially end the lawsuit against Keys because he was on a leave of absence during the time that the matters related to the filings that are still at issue would have occurred.
Before its collapse in 2008, Countrywide spinoff IndyMac was the country’s largest issuers of alt-A mortgage, also called “liar loans.” These high-risk home loans are primarily based on simple statements from borrowers of their income instead of tax returns. Unfortunately, loan defaults ended up soaring and a mid-2008 run on deposits at IndyMac contributed to its collapse. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, which places its IndyMac losses at $13 billion, went on to sell what was left of the bank to private investors. IndyMac is now OneWest bank.
Judge dismisses parts of IndyMac fraud case, Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2012
Read the SEC Complaint (PDF)
More Blog Posts:
Citigroup’s $75 Million Securities Fraud Settlement with the SEC Over Subprime Mortgage Debt Approved by Judge, Stockbroker Fraud Blog, October 23, 2010
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