Mortgage-Backed Securities

Wells Fargo Settles SEC Securities Fraud Allegations Over Sale of Complex Mortgage-Backed Securities by Wachovia for $11.2M

Published on: April 7, 2011 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

For a payment of $11.2 million, Wells Fargo & Co. will settle US Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that Wachovia Capital Markets LLC misled investors and improperly sold two collateralized debt obligations in 2007 and 2006. Wachovia was bought by Wells Fargo in 2008.

Wells Fargo Securities now manages Wachovia. By agreeing to settle, the investment bank is not admitting to or denying the findings.

According to the SEC, Wachovia Capital Markets LLC, now called Wells Fargo Securities, violated securities law anti-fraud provisions when it sold the complex mortgage-backed securities to investors despite the red flags indicating that there was trouble brewing with the US housing market.

The SEC says that Wachovia charged excessive markups in the sale of part of a $1.5 billion CDO called Grand Avenue II. Unable to sell the CDOs $5.5 million equity portion in October 2006, it kept the shares on the trading desk while dropping their value to 52.7 cents on the dollar. Wachovia later sold the shares for 90 and 95 cents on the dollar to an individual investor and the Zuni Indian tribe. Both did not know that they had purchased the shares at a price that was 70% above their accounting value. The transaction went into default in 2008.

The SEC claims that in 2007, Wachovia Capital Markets misrepresented to investors in Longshore 3, a $1.3 billion CDO, that assets had been acquired from Wachovia affiliates on an “arms’-length basis” when actually, 40 residential mortgage-backed securities were transferred at $4.6 million over market prices. The SEC contends that Wachovia was trying to avoid sustaining losses by transferring the assets at “stale” prices.

Related Web Resources:

Wells Fargo-Wachovia settles CDO claim with SEC for $11 million, Housing Wire, April 5, 2011

CDO News, New York Times

Mortgage-Backed Securities, SEC.gov

More Blog Posts:

Houston Man Indicted in Alleged $17M Texas Securities Fraud, Stockbroker Fraud Blog, December 23, 2010

Goldman Sachs COO Says Investment Firm Shorted 1% of CDOs Mortgage Bonds But Didn’t Bet Against Clients, Stockbroker Fraud Blog, July 14, 2010

Countrywide Finance. Corp, UBS Securities LLC, and JPMorgan Securities LLC Settle Mortgage-Backed Securities Lawsuit Filed by New Mexico Institutional Investors for $162M

Published on: March 10, 2011 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

New Mexico’s State Investment Council and Public Employees Retirement Association have settled their securities lawsuit with Countrywide Finance Corp. and two underwriters for $162 million. These details, from the confidential settlement agreement, were was obtained by the Albuquerque Journal through an Inspection of Public Records request.

The Countrywide investments were made up of mortgage-backed securities that the company had written. JPMorgan Securities and UBS Securities LLC were the two underwriters.

The securities were obtained through securities lending, which involved the SIC lending one batch of securities in return for another batch that paid a slightly higher interest rate. Although securities lending is generally considered safe for institutional investors like the SIC and PERA, mortgage-backed securities played a key role in the recent financial collapse. Even now, since the market has rebounded, the Countrywide securities are still worth less than what the state got.

In their institutional investment fraud lawsuit, the SIC and PERA accuse the defendants of disregarding their own underwriting guidelines and dumping the securities on investors, including the state of New Mexico, “to generate high volume loan business regardless of credit risk.” The New Mexico agencies opted to file their complaint in state court instead of taking part in a class-action lawsuit with other US states.

Of the $162 million, $149 million goes to SIC, PERA gets $6 million, the Educational Retirement Board receives $100,000, and the lawyers hired by the state are to receive $7 million. Bank of America bought out Countrywide in 2008.

Related Web Resources:

Countrywide sued by 3 New Mexico funds, Pensions & Investments, Pension and Investments, August 20, 2008

New Mexico State Investment Council

New Mexico Educational Retirement Board

More Blog Posts:
Bank of America and Countrywide Financial Sued by Allstate over $700M in Bad Mortgaged-Backed Securities, Stockbroker Fraud Blog, December 29, 2010

Countrywide Financial, Merrill Lynch, and Citigroup Executives Defend Their Hefty Compensations Following Subprime Mortgage Crisis, Stockbroker Fraud Blog, March 12, 2008

Securities Lawsuit Accusing Merrill Lynch of Facilitating Sale of Mortgage-Backed Securities to King County, Washington Can Proceed, Says Court

Published on: March 8, 2011 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington says that King County, Washington has pleaded sufficient facts to continue with its securities fraud lawsuit accusing Merrill Lynch, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Inc. and Merrill Lynch Money Markets Inc. of facilitating its purchase of allegedly toxic mortgage-backed securities and violating the Washington State Securities Act. The defendants had sought to dismiss the securities fraud complaint.

Per the plaintiff, the defendants sold more than $100 million of the toxic assets to King County through the entities Mansail II and Victoria Finance in 2007. At the time, the county had wanted to make conservative investments. Not long after, Mansail failed and Victoria was downgraded to “junk” and placed on negative credit watch.

The county, claiming $60 million in losses, contends that the defendants played the role of seller or dealer of the commercial paper but did not fulfill its responsibility of ensuring there were sufficient procedures in place so that unwise investments were avoided and adequate warning of investment risks were provided. The county also contends that Merrill Lynch and its subsidiaries knew that the securities it was selling were toxic and had even made efforts to get rid of its MBS.

Ex-Goldman Sachs Broker’s Request for SEC Help in Obtaining Documents from Germany Denied by District Court

Published on: February 17, 2011 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York says it will not direct the Securities and Exchange Commission to contact German authorities on behalf ex-Goldman Sachs & Co. (GS) executive Fabrice Tourre, who is seeking to obtain certain documents related to the securities fraud case against him. Per Magistrate Judge Michael Dolinger’s ruling, a discovery request based on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34(a) doesn’t “extend” to having a
“government agency make requests to a foreign government under the terms of” a memorandum of understanding between both parties. Dolinger notes that while MOU between the SEC and its German equivalent allows both regulators to help each other in the enforcement of their respective securities laws, “there is no indication” that the MOU is supposed to offer a right or a benefit to a private party, such as allowing a securities fraud litigant to obtain discovery in Germany.

The SEC charged Goldman Sachs and Tourre over alleged misstatements and omissions related to collateralized debt obligations called Abacus 2007-AC1, a derivative product linked to subprime mortgages. The broker-dealer settled its securities case for $550 million. Meantime, Tourre, who is accused of giving Goldman Sachs “substantial assistance” in its alleged efforts to mislead investors, is seeking to have the SEC case against him dismissed. He is pointing to Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., a US Supreme Court decision that was issued two months after the SEC filed charges against him.

This week, his lawyers argued that the SEC was attempting to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling, which limits the reach of civil claims over acts that occurred outside the country. The transactions involving Tourre that are under dispute took place abroad.

Goldman’s Tourre Shouldn’t Face SEC Lawsuit, His Lawyers Say, Bloomberg Businessweek, February 15, 2011

The SEC Complaint (PDF)

CalPERS Files Securities Fraud Lawsuit Against Lehman Brothers

Published on: February 10, 2011 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System is suing Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., its ex-executives, and a number of bond underwriters for fraud and of making materially false statements about mortgage-backed securities losses. CalPERS, a $229 billion public pension fund, owned about $700 million Lehman bonds and 3.9 million shares of Lehman bonds when Lehman filed for bankruptcy in September 2008. Because of the economic crisis, CalPERS funds lost $100 billion in value from September 2008 and March 2009.

In its securities fraud complaint, CalPERS accused Lehman of “dramatically” borrowing to fund its real estate investments from 2004 to 2007—high-risk activity that investors were not told about. Other defendants include ex-Lehman Chief Executive Richard S. Fuld Jr., ex-Lehman Chief Financial Officers Erin Callan and Christopher O’Meara, 9 Lehman directors, and 33 others firms, including Wells Fargo Securities, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., and Mellon Financial Markets. The defendants allegedly failed to disclose not just Lehman’s exposure to Alt-A lending and subprime, but also its mortgage-related assets’ true value.

This securities complaint is CalPERS second action against members of Wall Street that sold mortgage-backed securities. In July 2009, CAlPERS sued Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Services Inc., and Fitch Inc. The complaint accused the financial rating companies of giving top grades to bonds that ended up sustaining huge financial losses when the subprime mortgage securities market collapsed.

Also, CalPERS has a shareholder lawsuit against Bank of America Corp. (BAC) over its Merrill Lynch acquisition. The pension fund also has a case against BofA’s Countrywide Financial.

Related Web Resources:

CalPERS suit accuses Lehman Bros. of fraud, Los Angeles Times, February 9, 2011

CalPERS

Insurer Claims that JP Morgan and Bear Stearns Bilked Clients Of Billions of Dollars with Handling of Mortgage Repurchases

Published on: February 3, 2011 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Ambac Assurance Corp., a mortgage insurance company, claims that not only did JP Morgan Chase & Co. resist repurchasing loans from Bear Stears-created bonds, but also, it demanded that a lender buy back the bad mortgages. Ambac made the claim in a proposed amended securities lawsuit against Bear Stear’s EMC Mortgage unit. JP Morgan now owns Bear Stearns.

Ambac filed its securities lawsuit in 2008, claiming that ex-Bear Stearns mortgage executives that currently head mortgage divisions at Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Ally Financial defrauded and cheated investors, while hiding their actions from the public. Its complaint lists more than $600 million in claims with $1.2 billion in damages from the bad mortgage securities that it insured against and invested in. The insurer is now adding the claim of fraud to its case.

According to the complaint, on March 11, 2008, Bear Stearns, who had bought loans and packaged them into bonds for investors to buy, sought to have a lender repurchase mortgages in bonds that Syncora Guarantee Inc. had insured because it claimed that they did not meet promised standards of quality. This, at the same time that Bear Stearns refused, per Syncora’s demands, that it buy back the loans over the same flaws.

Bear traders allegedly sold the toxic mortgage securities to investors and then resold the bad loans with early payment defaults to banks that originated them. Because investors were not notified that the time allowed for early default payments had been cut, this allowed the investment bank to swiftly securitize defective loans without giving investors time conduct due diligence.

Former EMC analysts have stepped forward admitting that they were ordered to falsify loan-level performance data and that the information was passed on to ratings agencies, who would then approve Bear’s billion-dollar deals. They also claim that senior traders were taking money that should have gone to the security holders that bought the bonds and loans from Bear. Due diligence standards were allegedly ignored. Executives allegedly made tens of millions of dollars in compensation.

Ambac claims that Bear knew that what traders were doing in its mortgage trading division yet chose to conceal the defective loans and ignore contractual obligations. The insurer is now holding JP Morgan accountable for the accounting fraud that began at Bear. Ambac also contends that JP Morgan has continued to ignore the vast off-balance sheet exposure linked to its contractual repurchase agreements.

Related Web Resources:
E-mails Suggest Bear Stearns Cheated Clients Out of Billions, The Atlantic, January 25, 2011

Ambac Says JPMorgan Refused Mortgage Repurchases It Also Sought, Bloomberg Businessweek, January 25, 2011

JP Morgan and Chase, Institutional Investors Securities Blog, February 3, 2011

Securities Fraud Lawsuit Against Citigroup Involving Mortgage-Related Risk Results in Mixed Ruling

Published on: November 30, 2010 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

According to a district court ruling, investors can proceed with certain securities fraud charges against Citigroup and a number of its directors over the alleged misrepresenting of the risks involved in mortgage-related investments (including auction-rate securities, collateralized debt obligations, Alt-A residential mortgage-backed securities, and structured investment vehicles). However, the majority of claims involving pleading inadequacies have been dismissed. The securities lawsuit seeks to represent persons that bought Citigroup common stock between January 2004 and January 15, 2009.

Current and ex-Citigroup shareholders have said that as a result of the securities fraud, which involved the misrepresentation of the risks involved via exposure to collateralized debt obligations, they ended up paying an inflated stock price. The plaintiffs are accusing several of the defendants of selling significant amounts of Citigroup stock during the class period. They also say that seven of the individual defendants certified the accuracy of certain Securities and Exchange Commission filings that were allegedly fraudulent. They plaintiffs are claiming that there were SEC filings that violated accounting rules because of the failure to report CDO exposure and value such holdings with accuracy.

The plaintiffs claim that the defendants intentionally hid the fact that billions of dollars in CDOs hadn’t been bought. They also said that defendants made misleading statements that did not properly make clear the subprime risks linked to the Citigroup CDO portfolio.

The defendants submitted a dismissal motion, which the court granted for the most part. Although the court is letting certain CDO-related claims to move forward, it agrees with the defense that because the plaintiffs failed to raise an inference of scienter before February 2007 (when the investment bank started buying insurance for its most high risk CDO holdings), the claims for that period cannot be maintained. The court also held that the plaintiffs failed to plead that seven of the individual defendants had been aware of Citigroup’s CDO operations. As a result, the court determined that there can be no finding of scienter in regards to the individuals.

The court, however, did that the plaintiffs adequately pleaded securities fraud claims against Citigroup, Gary Crittenden, Charles Prince, Thomas Maheras, Robert Druskin, David C. Bushnell, Michael Stuart Klein, and Robert Rubin for misstatements made about the bank’s CDO exposure between February and November 3, 2007. The plaintiffs also adequately pleaded securities fraud claims against Citigroup and Crittenden for Nov. 4, 2007, to April 2008 period.

Financial Firms File Securities Fraud Lawsuits Against Each Other Over 2008 Credit and Subprime Crisis

Published on: November 29, 2010 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

In what one investment banking official is calling a “second wave” of securities litigation stemming from the credit and subprime crisis of 2008, financial firms are now suing other financial institutions for damages. While speaking on a Practising Law Institute panel, Morgan Stanley managing director D. Scott Tucker noted that this “second wave” is the “exact opposite of the first wave,” which was primarily brought by smaller pension funds or states claiming violations of the 1933 Securities Act and the 1934 Securities Exchange Act.

Tucker said that with this new wave, most of the plaintiffs are financial institutions, including investment managers and hedge funds, that are asserting common law fraud and making other state law claims. Also, these latest lawsuits are primarily individual cases, rather than class actions. The securities at the center of this latest wave of litigation are complex structured products, such as credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and mortgage-backed securities, as well as complaints involving private placements and derivatives or securities that don’t trade on liquid markets.

Our securities fraud lawyers at Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas LTD LLP represent institutional investors who suffered financial losses because of their dealings with investment companies. Unlike other law firms, our stockbroker fraud lawyers will never represent brokerage firms.

Securities Claims Against Goldman Sachs Over Mortgage-Backed Certificates are Partially Dismissed by Court Due to Lack of Injury

Published on: October 30, 2010 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has ruled that without an injury, a mortgage-backed certificates holder cannot maintain a securities claim against MBS underwriter Goldman Sachs & Co. (GS) and related entities for allegedly misstating the risks involved in the certificates in their registration statement. Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum says that plaintiff NECA-IBEW Health & Welfare Fund knew that the investment it made could be illiquid and, therefore, cannot allege injury based on the certificates hypothetical price on the secondary market at the time of the complaint. The court, however, did deny Goldman’s motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s claims brought under the 1933 Securities Act’s Section 12(a)(2) and Section 15.

The Fund had purchased from Goldman a series of MBS certificates with a face value of $390,000 in the initial public offering on Oct. 15, 2007. The fund then bought another series of MBS certificates with a $49,827.56 face value from Goldman, which served as underwriter, creator of the mortgage loan pools, sponsor of the offerings, and issuer of the certificates after securitizing the loans and placing them in trusts.

Per the 1933 Act’s Section 11, the Fund alleged that in the resale market the certificates were valued at somewhere between “‘between 35 and 45 cents on the dollar.” However, instead of alleging that it did not get the distributions it was entitled to, the plaintiff contended that it was exposed to a significantly higher risk than what the Offering Documents represented. The court said that NECA failed to state any allegation of an injury in fact. The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss.

Following the court’s decision, Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas Founder and Securities Fraud Attorney William Shepherd said, “It is sad that large and small investors have little clout in the processes of selecting judges. Thus, Wall Street continues to gain advantages in court—especially federal court.”

Related Web Resources:

NECA-IBEW

Goldman Sach’s $550 Million Securities Fraud Settlement Not Tied to Financial Reform Bill, Says SEC IG

Published on: October 27, 2010 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

According Securities and Exchange Commission Inspector General H. David Kotz, there is no evidence that the SEC’s enforcement action against Goldman Sachs or the $550 million securities fraud settlement that resulted are tied to the financial services reform bill. Kotz also noted that it does not appear that any agency person leaked any information about the ongoing investigation to the press before the case was filed last April. The SEC says that the IG’s report reaffirms that the complaint against Goldman was based only on the merits.

That said, Kotz did find that SEC staff failed to fully comply with the administrative requirement that they do everything possible to make sure that defendants not find out about any action against them through the media. Kotz notes that this, along with the failure to notify NYSE Reg[ulation] before filing the action and the fact that the action was filed during market hours caused the securities market to become more volatile that day. Goldman had settled the SEC’s charges related to its marketing of synthetic collateralized debt obligation connected to certain subprime mortgage-backed securities in 2007 on the same day that the Senate approved the financial reform bill.

Last April, several Republican congressman insinuated that politics may have been involved because the announcement of the case came at the same time that Democrats were pressing for financial regulatory reform. SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro denied the allegation.

Earlier this month, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wrote Schapiro asking to see an unredacted copy of the internal investigative report by the IG. Issa is the one who had pressed Kotz to examine the decision-making process behind the Goldman settlement. Issa’s spokesperson says the lawmaker is concerned that the SEC can redact parts of its IG reports before the public and Congress can see them. However, at a Senate Banking Committee last month, Kotz, said that the SEC redacts information because the data could impact the capital markets.

Related Web Resources:

Goldman Settles With S.E.C. for $550 Million, The New York Times, July 15, 2010

SEC’s Inspector General to Investigate Timing of Suit Against Goldman Sachs, Fox News, April 25, 2010

General H. David Kotz, SEC