But not in the US!

Via ValueWalk,

Some thought it would never happen. But in Iceland, the former chief executive of one of the largest banks in the country which was involved in crashing the economy in 2008 has been sentenced to jail time.

Iceland banker the first to manipulate bank’s stock price

In receiving a one year prison sentence, Sigurjon Arnason officially became the first bank executive to be convicted of manipulating the bank’s stock price and deceiving investors, creditors and the authorities between Sept. 29 and Oct. 3, 2008, as the bank’s fortunes unwound, crashing the economy with it.  Landsbanki was one of three banks that had tallied nearly $75 billion in debt before the final curtain was drawn.

What, me guilty? was the bank executive’s response upon learning of his fate. “This sentence is a big surprise to me as I did not nothing wrong,” Arnason…

Neil Barofsky is the author of the new book “BAILOUT: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street.”  If you read anything in Neil Barofsky’s new book – BAILOUT, you MUST read
Chapter 8 “Foaming the Runway”.  

WASHINGTON (CN) – The U.S. Justice Department refuses to release the details of deals struck between federal prosecutors and alleged corporate wrongdoers, a suit filed by a law school librarian claims.
Jonathan Ashley, a librarian at the University of Virginia School of Law, sued the agency in federal court, stating that the agency wrongfully withheld the records under the Freedom of Information Act.
According to the complaint, Ashley has been doing research on behalf of law professor Brandon Garrett, whose academic works focuses on the criminal justice system and the potential for prosecutorial abuse associated with the deals between prosecutors and big corporations.
Critics of such non-prosecution agreements (NPAs) and deferred-prosecution agreements (DPAs) contend they allow senior level management to escape prosecution on white collar crimes in exchange for a promise to beef up their compliance and pay a relatively nominal fine.
“Courts have been skeptical of both NPAs and…

Senator Elizabeth Warren asks Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt about principal reduction for homeowners, at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on November 19, 2014.

Wells Fargo & Co and the U.S. Department of Justice are “no longer as optimistic” about settling a lawsuit accusing the country’s largest mortgage lender of fraud, a lawyer for the bank said on Tuesday.

Credit unions are enduring a crisis of creeping complexity with respect to regulatory burden, and the Credit Union National Association believes at least three bipartisan bills currently before the U.S. Senate could alleviate some of that drag.

The ever-increasing, never-decreasing regulatory burden erects barriers to their ability to serve their members, particularly in the mortgage space, CUNA says.

“The enactment of these bills would represent a small step in the right direction toward removing barriers to credit union service,” said Jim Nussle, president of CUNA. “As the Senate reassembles for the remaining weeks of the 113^th Congress, we urge passage of these important bills.”

The 113^th Congress could, despite its lame duck status, pass these bills before the Christmas recess and the swearing in of the 114^th Congress in 2015.

Read on.

No, it should be a criminal suit!

Federal prosecutors are wrestling with whether to file a civil fraud lawsuit against Angelo R. Mozilo, the former chief executive ofCountrywide Financial, which was at the center of the subprime mortgage boom and bust, people briefed on the matter say.

This summer, the United States attorney’s office in Los Angeles was said to be close to filing a lawsuit against Mr. Mozilo over his role in Countrywide’s sale of millions of mortgages to home buyers with questionable credit histories. Prosecutors there were planning to move forward with a civil fraud lawsuit nearly three years after it had abandoned a criminal investigation of Countrywide and Mr. Mozilo, the firm’s co-founder.

But Stephanie Yonekura, the acting United States attorney for the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles, has had lingering questions about the litigation because of arguments raised by lawyers…

And those crappy loans will be sold to either non-banks or hedge funds… Good luck to the idiots that buys the crap loans…

Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. (C) are selling multiple pools of soured U.S. mortgages to meet demand from investment firms that are pushing prices higher, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

Bank of America put about $1 billion of troubled debt on the market last week, consisting of nonperforming loans and some where payments have resumed, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the offerings are private. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender also is marketing about $1 billion of soured home loans with Wells Fargo & Co., according to one of the people. Citigroup is separately selling about $1 billion of nonperforming and re-performing mortgages, the people said.

Dan Frahm, a spokesman for Bank of America, and…

Source: Alex Cartoon