FHFA Sues 17 Firms to Recover Losses to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

From the FHFA website:

Washington, DC — The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), as conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises), today filed lawsuits against 17 financial institutions, certain of their officers and various unaffiliated lead underwriters. The suits allege violations of federal securities laws and common law in the sale of residential private-label mortgage-backed securities (PLS) to the Enterprises.

Complaints have been filed against the following lead defendants, in alphabetical order:

1. Ally Financial Inc. f/k/a GMAC, LLC

2. Bank of America Corporation

3. Barclays Bank PLC

4. Citigroup, Inc.

5. Countrywide Financial Corporation

6. Credit Suisse Holdings (USA), Inc.

7. Deutsche Bank AG

8. First Horizon National Corporation

9. General Electric Company

10. Goldman Sachs & Co.

11. HSBC North America Holdings, Inc.
12. JPMorgan Chase & Co.

13. Merrill Lynch & Co. / First Franklin Financial Corp.
14. Morgan Stanley

15. Nomura Holding America Inc.

16. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC

17. Société Générale

These complaints were filed in federal or state court in New York or the federal court in Connecticut. The complaints seek damages and civil penalties under the Securities Act of 1933, similar in content to the complaint FHFA filed against UBS Americas, Inc. on July 27, 2011. In addition, each complaint seeks compensatory damages for negligent misrepresentation. Certain complaints also allege state securities law violations or common law fraud

The full pres release is embedded below and the individual company-specific lawsuits which include individual executive defendants are at the link below. Maybe I spoke too soon about dumb things bloggers say. We’ll see.

Source: FHFA Filings in PLS Cases, September 2, 2011

asset-backed securitiesbanksFannie MaefraudFreddie MacHousinglawmortgages