Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank fail to end US mortgage lawsuits
In separate decisions on Monday, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan said the Federal Housing Finance Agency may pursue fraud claims over some of the banks' representations in offering materials regarding mortgage underwriting standards.
The FHFA had sued over certificates that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, known as government-sponsored enterprises, had bought between September 2005 and October 2007.
Goldman underwrote about $11.1 billion of the certificates, and Deutsche Bank roughly $14.2 billion, the regulator has said.
Michael DuVally, a Goldman spokesman, declined to comment, as did Deutsche Bank spokeswoman Renee Calabro. Trials in both cases are scheduled to begin in September 2014.
Last year, the FHFA filed 18 lawsuits against banks and finance companies over mortgage losses suffered by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on roughly $200 billion of securities.
Cote handles 16 of the lawsuits, and previously refused to dismiss its cases against Bank of America Corp's Merrill Lynch unit, JPMorgan Chase & Co and UBS AG.
In her Deutsche Bank ruling, the judge said that while the offering materials said representations were preliminary and subject to change, their use suggested that the German bank fully intended the GSEs to rely on them.
Meanwhile, Cote rejected what she called Goldman's legally dubious claim not to be liable over prospectus supplements it did not write, saying it is
Be the first to comment.
