Bank of America loses fraud trial over mortgages

Quoting 

Bank of America was found liable for fraud on Wednesday on claims related to defective mortgages sold by its Countrywide unit, a major win for the U.S. government in one of the few big trials stemming from the financial crisis. Following a four-week trial, a federal jury in Manhattan found the Charlotte, North Carolina bank liable on one civil fraud charge in connection with shoddy home loans that the former Countrywide Financial Corp sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and originated in a process called "Hustle." The four men and six women on the jury also found a one-time Countrywide executive, Rebecca Mairone, liable on the one fraud charge facing her. A decision on how much to penalize the bank would be left to U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff. The U.S. Department of Justice has said it would ask Rakoff to award up to $848.2 million, the gross loss it said Fannie and Freddie suffered on the loans.

Mike

Working on some new charts for my platform, see:

Big Mike's custom trading platform Hi guys, So I've written several posts about this all over the place but I keep getting questions and PM's so it makes more sense for this to have its own thread. First, I need to tell you that while I have no problem sharing a great deal, …

> doChart(list("BAC","JPM","WFC","USB"), start="2008-01-01", benchmark="XLF", mean=TRUE)



Mike

In reply to the post about BoA being fined... seems like every major US bank is getting hit with similar fines recently. Makes no sense, except when you realise the US government is in debt and they get proceeds directly from such fines. Conspicuous I think.

P.S. On the contrary, I like BoA... they have small bonuses when opening up accs with them, but I recently applied for an Alaska Airlines credit card and, since I am from Europe (currently away for 6 months in north Chicago suburbs opening up a small business), was initially declined due to mismatching SSN address/name info (guess should have entered my name only with English letters on the app, not the diacritic marks).. i called them and they asked a few standard compliance questions, then approved me but with a low $1K limit. Either way, was very happy due to good customer service & 50,000 bonus airmiles after hitting my minimal spend requirements + free companion pass. I know this is a big off-topic, but as they say, my 2 sents. Fines will only make such banks more resolute to get new clients = more revenue.