Hat tip to Zerohedge:

This is a Sept 25, 2014, Washington State supreme court ruling on REMIC taxes not exempt because Cashmere did not receive any interest in mortgages or deeds of trust to back its investment.

Cashmere v. Dept of Revenue (PDF)

Michael Gamsky testified that REMIC investments are not secured transactions because issuers do not pledge any property as security for the investments. He explained that investors who purchase REMIC certificates are beneficiaries of a trust and they have contractual rights under the pooling and servicing agreement, but they are not secured investors.

After reviewing the evidence, the superior court granted summary judgment to DOR. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that Cashmere’s investments were not primarily secured by first mortgages or deeds of trust because Cashmere had no power to institute foreclosure proceedings. Cashmere Valley Bank, 175 Wn. App. at 418. Thus, the bank’s investments were not secured and the deduction…

LOL! What a joke! You mean steal from his country…

Former American International Group Inc. (AIG) Chief Executive OfficerEdward Liddy defended his role as the government-tapped leader of the company at the time of a 2008 bailout, saying he took the job to help his country and protect shareholders.

Without taking an $85 billion loan from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at steep terms, which now face a legal challenge from then-largest AIG shareholder Maurice “Hank” Greenberg’s Starr International Co., the insurer would have wound up in bankruptcy and stockholders “would have been wiped out,” Liddy told a government lawyer today in Washington federal court.

Read on.

Law360, Los Angeles (October 17, 2014, 9:14 PM ET) — The Second Circuit on Thursday declined to grant a panel or en banc rehearing of its decision to toss an investor class action alleging Deutsche Bank AG lied about its $27 billion exposure to risky mortgage assets during the financial crisis.

A three-judge appellate panel in July refused to revive the action, finding that the bank’s estimation of its position was a matter of opinion. It held that the plaintiff investors failed to establish that statements from the bank about its exposure to risky residential mortgage-backed…

Source: Law360

Banks chartered in New York could soon be required to appoint chief information security officers and submit to quarterly tests of their systems’ vulnerabilities under a cybersecurity regime being considered by state regulator Benjamin Lawsky.

Those strict requirements appear in the Department of Financial Services’ sweeping, controversialproposal for regulating virtual currency businesses. Lawsky said this week he is thinking of using the cybersecurity provisions of the so-called BitLicense framework as a model for banks and insurance companies on his watch. Those rules would be far more stringent than any existing data-security regulations for financial institutions.

Read on.

FRESNO, Calif. (CN) – A woman died after Wells Fargo locked her out of her home in foreclosure proceedings, leaving her unable to plug in the oxygen concentrator she needed to live, her daughter claims in court.
Brooke Noble sued Wells Fargo Bank on Thursday in Superior Court, for negligence and the wrongful death of her mother, Marsha Kilgore.
She claims that in its foreclosure proceedings, Wells Fargo violated state orders and locked her mother out of her home. Her mom died on Oct. 16, 2013, “from inability to breathe,” according to the lawsuit.
The bank knew that her mother was dependent on an oxygen concentrator that needs to be plugged into the wall, Noble says.

Read on.

Yet, he won’t tell the 83 million customers if any of their information was compromised.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon offered a grave warning on Friday about future cyberattacks.

Making his first public statement about theenormous data breach that roiled the bank this summer, Dimon said the company would spend $250 million a year to increase security and prevent future breaches,The New York Times reported.

“This is going to be a big deal and there will be a lot of battles,” he said, according to a JPMorgan spokeswoman. “We need a lot of help.”

Read on.

When the Center for Public Integrity last summer requested records from Florida’s 17th judicial circuit regarding the procedures and policies surrounding foreclosure cases, officials were more than happy to comply — for a price.

A price of $132,348, to be exact.

Alexandra Rieman, general counsel for the circuit that includes Fort Lauderdale and Broward County, said the public records request would require staff to sort through 149,000 emails. That, in turn, would require 2,500 staff member hours at rates of either $45 or $53 an hour, which added up to the $132,348 figure.

And whatever records the court system did provide would cost another 15 cents a page, Rieman added, without including estimates of staffer hours and hourly rates.

The Center for Public Integrity refused to pay the amount, arguing that the fees were excessive.

More here…

A fair-housing advocacy group Wednesday accused U.S. Bank of failing to adequately maintain foreclosed properties in metro Denver’s minority neighborhoods.

The National Fair Housing Alliance added Denver and three other cities to its pending complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that alleges improper foreclosure maintenance in 41 cities nationwide.

The group has filed similar complaints against other banks, including Wells Fargo and Bank of America. The complaints state that the banks and their servicers conduct good maintenance on foreclosed homes in predominantly white neighborhoods but fall short in minority areas by allowing homes to deteriorate, accumulate trash and become overgrown with weeds.

Last year, Wells Fargo settled a similar complaint over how it maintained foreclosures, agreeing to invest $39 million in 45 communities, including Denver, to improve housing in minority neighborhoods hit hard by foreclosures.

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