Pacific Investment Management Co and other investors have sued Citigroup Inc over the bank’s alleged failure to properly monitor toxic securities backed by more than $13.8 billion of mortgage loans, resulting in $2.3 billion of losses.

According to a complaint filed Tuesday night in a New York state court in Manhattan, Citigroup breached its duties as trustee for the 25 private-label trusts dating from 2004 to 2007 by ignoring “pervasive and systemic deficiencies” in how the underlying loans were underwritten or being serviced.

The investors said Citigroup looked askance at the loans’ “abysmal performance” out of fear it might “jeopardize its close business relationships” with loan servicers including Wells Fargo & Co and JPMorgan Chase & Co, or prompt them to retaliate over its own problem loans.
Read more at Reutershttp://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/25/us-citigroup-pimco-lawsuit-idUSKBN0TE2MC20151125#Bk9vqKEToqdG55gP.99

Wiring a federal agent or informant would have been legal.

But the feds crossed the line by secretly installing microphones in at least three locations outside a California courthouse in 2009 and 2010 and eavesdropping on private conversations, says a motion. It was filed by defendants in a criminal case over claimed manipulation of foreclosure sales by real estate investors to drive down prices, reports the Recorder(sub. req.). The filing seeks to prevent the use of hundreds of hours of recorded evidence against the defendants.

With the OK of the Department of Justice and FBI lawyers, the government made the warrantless recordings with electronic bugs hidden in a planter, a wall-mounted metal sprinkler box and vehicles parked near an entrance to the San Mateo County courthouse in Redwood City, the defendants allege. This violated the defendants’ Fourth Amendment rights, says a motion to suppress (PDF) filed Friday in the…

Brad Pitt, who stars in the financial drama “The Big Short,” blasted bankers at a screening for Academy members on Monday.

Asked if banks should’ve been held more accountable for the crisis that inspired the film, Pitt sighed, “I’m as frustrated as you are . . . I think it’s horrible that no bank officials have ever been held accountable, therefore there’s no incentive to stop this behavior.”

Director Adam McKay said, “We did a screening . . . Nancy Pelosi was there . . . We talked about that. It’s the oldest scam . . . [Bankers] tell the leaders, ‘If you put us in jail, you’ll ruin the economy’ . . . I think Obama has done a lot of good things, but I think one of the big black marks on his presidency is that no one went to jail.”

Read on.

Davis v. Hoa Thi Phan (In re Tung Thanh Nguyen), 783 F.3d 759 (10th Cir. 2015) –

A chapter 7 trustee sought to avoid as a fraudulent conveyance a debtor’s transfer of real property to his sister by quit claim deed for no consideration. The bankruptcy court ruled that the debtor held only bare legal title, so the transfer could not be avoided. The bankruptcy appellate panel affirmed, and the trustee appealed to the 10^th Circuit.

Congratulations to the experts and attorneys on this. As Marie McDonnell states in the article reproduced below this case is important because it is the first time that Robo-signing has resulted in an award of damages for fraud. I would add that the lawyers must have done a fine job at trial — because ordinarily we don’t see jury instructions that would support punitive damages for robo-signing. The pages are turning on a new chapter.

As for the rest, I’ll let Marie speak for herself ———-

H/T Marie McDonnell

Wall Street is facing an “incredibly disturbing” trend.

Students at business schools who think of themselves as “highly ethical” aren’t interested in a career on Wall Street. They don’t see the big banks as moral enough for their standards.

That’s according to William Dudley, the president of the New York Federal Reserve. Dudley knows a thing or two about ethics at big banks. He used to work at Goldman Sachs and now Dudley leads one of the watchdogs in charge of overseeing Wall Street’s activities.

Dudley was bothered by a recent conversation with business school deans. They told him that business school students who consider themselves “highly ethical” are choosing not to work in financial services.

“As long as we have that self selection out of the financial industry by people who view themselves as highly ethical…that tells you we have a problem,” Dudley said at the Economic Club…

Bernie Sanders has long described himself as a democratic socialist and has found himself fending off mischaracterizations of his political ideology quite often on the campaign trail, so much so that he plans to hold a major address on Thursdayexplicitly detailing what it means to be a democratic socialist. Ahead of Sanders’ big speech, Rolling Stone is out with its new cover feature on his political revolution and as an interview with the candidate while he was on the campaign trail back in May reveals, the populist seems just as committed to major reform as ever — starting with Wall Street.

The Vermont senator told Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson that his first course of action upon entering the White House would be to go after the Wall Street executives responsible for the 2008 global financial collapse. Not one Wall Street executive has ever been held criminally liable for the rampant…

From Bill Moyer’s 2004 interview with Elizabeth Warren:

Sorry Bill, but Hillary’s donations from Wall Street and her plan for Wall Street as President is very questionable. Both political parties have right to question and challenge Hillary. Bernie and Martin should not get her pass because they are all from the same party. And that goes for any issues. All Presidential candidates from both parties should challenge one another on issues that matters in this country.  And her stance of not wanting to reinstate Glass-Steagall bill, the same bill that Bill Clinton repealed, is not helping Hillary to win voters over that she is a trustworthy President that will go after Wall Street execs on their financial crimes…

Bloomberg:

Former President Bill Clinton insisted Sunday that his wife doesn’t deserve to be attacked by her fellow Democratic candidates for her relationship with Wall Street as opponents on both sides of the aisle jump to attack her defense those ties.

“It…