For media inquiries only, contact: 
Michael Kelly, Director of Communications
Phone: (804)786-5874
Email: mkelly@oag.state.va.us

HERRING BRINGS RECORD $1.15 BILLION LAWSUIT AGAINST BANKS FOR DEFRAUDING VIRGINIA TAXPAYERS

~ Largest suit ever brought under Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act seeks accountability for banks that fraudulently sold mortgage-backed securities to the Virginia Retirement System ~

RICHMOND (September 16, 2014)–Attorney General Mark R. Herring today announced a historic lawsuit against some of the largest commercial banks in the world for fraud committed against Virginia taxpayers during the height of the real estate bubble. A lawsuit unsealed today in Richmond Circuit Court seeks $1.15 billion in damages against thirteen banks that are each accused of fraudulently misleading the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) during the sale of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) to the state retirement fund. The VRS was entitled to accurate information about the underlying…

(CN) – A federal judge dealt a blow to big-banking interests by upholding a policy extending regulatory reach to the overseas subsidiaries of U.S. financial firms involved in derivative swaps.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced a new policy regarding cross-border derivative swaps in July 2013, trying to address a problem made clear by the 2008 financial crisis: that the investment decisions of foreign offices had major ramifications for U.S. financial firms.
American International Group nearly failed because of the risks incurred by swaps made by its London-based subsidiary, AIG Financial Products – but the U.S. government bore the burden of bailing the company out.
And Lehman Brothers, which did not benefit from a government bailout, similarly guaranteed nearly 130,000 derivative contracts held by one of its London-based subsidiaries when it filed for bankruptcy in 2008.
The derivatives market has since rebounded from the crisis, and financial firms have…

In the recent filing November 9, 2011 of an Ohio case, Deutsche v. Holden, in the Court of Common Pleas in Summit County, (Akron) Ohio, defense attorneys submit that the note had not been transferred pursuant to the PSA therefore the foreclosing entity (Deutsche) did not own the note and mortgage.

Holden‘s Motion to dismiss cites the November 16, 2010 Congressional Oversight Panel’s (COP) report titled “Examining the Consequences of Mortgage Irregularities for Financial Stability and Foreclosure Mitigation” as well as the PSA and New York trust law.

Senator Ted Kaufman warned that the COP investigation found evidence that he stated as the worse case scenario, “considerably grimmer” where “robo-signers served to conceal the fact the banks cannot prove that they own the mortgage loans that

What happens if there’s a conference on corporate crime and nobody hears about it?

Did it happen?

It did.

It happened on April 4 and 5, 2014 at New York University School of Law.

The conference — Deterring Corporate Crime: Effective Principles for Corporate Enforcement – was the brainchild of Jennifer Arlen, co-chair of the NYU Law Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement. The conference was co-sponsored by the American Law Institute.

Food for the event was provided by Jules Kroll and his firm K2 Intelligence.

Reporters were not invited or allowed in.

As a result, there was no reporting on the conference.

And not that reporters wouldn’t have loved to have been there.

You had some of biggest names in the field.

You had your prosecutors — including Preet Bharara, Benjamin Lawsky, Andrew Ceresney, Denis McInerney, Jeffrey Knox.

You had your defense attorneys — including Lanny Breuer (Covington &…

While fishing for bank-related patents this gem surfaced and jumped into the net.  At first it wasn’t apparent it was a keeper because the UETA issue has not been in the forefront of foreclosure defense. However, taking the time to dissect the document it became apparent that, as some of us have suspected, there is a mandatory methodology from the origination of the mortgage loan on a trip to the securitized trust that includes the EXPLICIT CONSENT of the obligor (homeowner).

Yup… The road to securitization needs an electronic record that the “issuer” aka the “obligor” has explicitly consented to at the time of origination. Yeah, ya think maybe that was the real intention of MERS aka Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.? But it looks like it didn’t have all its ducks in a row. This is a lot to digest – but you need to know and understand…

The turn of the century mortgage lending fiasco was built like a 21st Century casino.
The entire scheme started with the homeowner who wanted to buy a home or refinance at unbelievable interest rates… too good to be true… and they were!

It all started with a loan application called a “1003.”  EVERY lender in the scheme used the same loan application software.  In fact, Fannie Mae patented the sucker. Inside this specific patent are numerous patents related to and referenced that make up the beloved 1003 loan application. These patents are listed on line in the USPTO.

One of the reference patents is a gem called the “Online system for fulfiling loan applications from loan originators” and it describes how technological methodology is integrated into the mortgage lending process.  

Here’s the first part of the journey….look up and see who actually “owns” your loan:

Freddie Mac Loan Lookup

https://ww3.freddiemac.com/loanlookup/

Fannie Mae Loan Lookup

https://knowyouroptions.com/loanlookup

Morgan Stanley has agreed to pay $95 million (59 million pounds) to resolve a lawsuit accusing the Wall Street bank of misleading investors in mortgage-backed securities in the run up to the 2008 financial crisis.

The settlement, disclosed in court papers filed Monday in New York federal court, follows years of litigation by investors over allegedly false and misleading statements over the soured securities.

The deal stemmed from a lawsuit pursued by the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi (MissPERS) and the West Virginia Investment Management Board.

The plaintiffs accused Morgan Stanley of violating U.S. securities law in packaging and selling mortgage backed securities in 13 offerings in 2006 and 16 offerings in 2007.

Read on.

In response to the insightful article by Daniel Wise, “Panel Shifts Toward Remedy in ‘Sarmiento,'” (Aug. 29), I would raise one small point. Wise lamented that “The 2009 New York law (mandating settlement conferences in foreclosure cases) specifically instructed the Judiciary to issue rules to ‘ensure’ that judges have ‘the necessary authority and power’ to see that ‘conferences not be unduly delayed or subject to willful dilatory tactics,'” but that “the Judiciary has taken no action on the Legislature’s command.”

What the Legislature actually stated was “The chief administrator of the courts shall … promulgate such additional rules as may be necessary to ensure the just and expeditious processing of all settlement conferences authorized hereunder.”¹

Although banks and mortgage servicers have argued in a number of cases that the failure of the chief administrator to have issued rules specifying what sanctions might be imposed for failing to…