Remember this LIBOR class action case two years ago? From attorney John Walter Sharbrough law website:

Interest Rate Fixing
LIBOR Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) Litigation

John W. Sharbrough, III, filed the first action on behalf of homeowners against the world’s largest banks for manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”).  The LIBOR rate has been called the most important interest rate in the world.  The LIBOR index is used to set the interest rates on almost all adjustable rate mortgages and many other loans.

The banks charged with illegal manipulations include the following:

Bank of America Corporation
Barclays Bank, PLC
Citigroup Inc.
Citibank, N.A.
HSBC PLC
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Chase Bank USA
Credit Suisse Group, AG
Deutsche Bank AG
Royal Bank of Canada
Royal Bank of Scotland
UBS AG

This case is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.  The complaint…

The three-year-old U.S. consumer protection agency said it discovered that the largest mortgage servicers have been mishandling loan modifications and harming borrowers since new rules came into effect in January.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau supervisors have made spot checks to examine the books and practices of bank and nonbank servicers, the agency said in a report yesterday, without naming the firms. Supervisors found “substantial delays” in modifying loans that resulted in “negative consequences,” such as higher mortgage payments and unjustified blemishes on borrowers’ credit reports, the report said.

“All borrowers should be treated fairly by loan servicers, and through our supervision program, we intend to hold them accountable,” Richard Cordray, the CFPB director, said in a statement.

Read on.

For further information, assistance, consultation, expert analysis, or litigation support please call 954-495-9867 or 520 405-1688.

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Bankers may yet face federal prosecution for their roles in the 2008 financial crisis, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said today.

“We have ongoing investigations that may perhaps produce individual prosecutions,” Holder said, defending the Justice Department’s handling of probes that have resulted in large financial settlements but few criminal prosecutions.

Holder announced his retirement last month, saying he would remain in the job until a new attorney general is nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate. He said he expects that process to take until the beginning of next year.

“My hope would be the Senate would take up that nomination the same way that mine was and, by early February, we have a new attorney general,” he said.

read on.

Sperry Assoc. Fed. Credit Union v. US Bank Nat’l Ass’n (In re White), 514 B.R. 365 (Bankr. E.D.N.Y. 2014) –

A junior mortgagee sought to subordinate the senior mortgage loan based on an argument that modification of the senior loan impaired the junior mortgagee’s rights.

Evidence Suggests MERS Was Conceived in a “Fraud Friendly” Way

Bank of America’s Assignment and Blank Endorsement Were Insufficient to Transfer Ownership Interest

2014-10-16 – Nash – Final Judgment

Bank of America, N.A. Successor by Merger to BAC Home Loans Servicing, LP fka Countrywide Home Loans Servicing, LP v. Nash, Case No. 49-2011-CA-004389, In the Circuit Court of the 18th Judicial Circuit, Seminole County, Florida

The Court finds that:

The Court finds that:

a.) America’s Wholesale Lender, a New York Corporation, the “Lender”,

Specifically named in the mortgage, did not file this action, did not appear at

Trial, and did not Assign any of the interest in the mortgage. ·

b.) The Note and Mortgage are void because the alleged Lender, America’s

Wholesale Lender, stated to be a New York Corporation, was not in fact

incorporated in the year 2005 or subsequently, at any time, by either

Countrywide Home…

In re Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc., 513 B.R. 624 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2014) –

A purchaser of residential mortgage-backed securities filed proofs of claim based on alleged misrepresentations by the debtors in offering materials distributed in connection with sale of the securities. The debtors objected and sought to subordinate the claims as claims arising from securities “of” the debtors.

Two years ago, part of mortgage servicerOcwen Financial Corp. relocated to St. Croix and the company’s chairman, William C. Erbey, wanted to move there, too. The company bought Erbey’s Atlanta home for $6.4 million and put it on the market in September 2012. The house is still for sale and stockholders are paying the price, reports The Wall Street Journal.

By many measures, the company paid too much for the house at 4701 Northside Drive, reports WSJ Moneybeat. Erbey bought the six-bedroom, 12-bathroom, 14,387-square-foot home in 2006 for $4.385 million. He sold it to the company at a 47.7 percent increase, although the median value of top-tier homes in the area had dropped 11.2 percent, the WSJ adds.

Read on.