JPMorgan May Face Criminal Charges Over Taped Phone Conversations

Federal authorities are using taped phone conversations to build criminal cases related to the multibillion-dollar trading loss at JPMorgan Chase, focusing on calls in which employees openly discussed how to value the troubled bets in a favorable way.

Investigators are looking into the actions of four people who previously worked for the team based in London responsible for the $6 billion loss, according to officials briefed on the case. The Federal Bureau of Investigation could make some arrests in the next several months, said one person who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry was ongoing.

The phone recordings, which were turned over to authorities by JPMorgan, have helped focus the investigation, the officials said. Authorities are poring over thousands of conversations, in English and French. They are also relying on notes that employees took during staff meetings, instant messages circulated among traders and e-mails sent within the group.

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Transcript: Assured vs Flagstar – “In 2006 transaction, two out of three loans breached those promises, In 2005 transaction, the number was as high as 85 percent”

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Former IndyMac chief pays $80,000 to settle SEC case

(Reuters) – The former chief executive of failed mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp has agreed to pay $80,000 to resolve the remaining parts of a U.S. securities fraud case against him, after a federal court earlier this year had dismissed much of the case.

The settlement between Michael Perry and the Securities and Exchange Commission ends a long-running case that hinged on whether or not IndyMac’s top executives disclosed crucial information about the bank’s financial health at the onset of the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

The settlement, which was dated September 27 and announced by the SEC and Perry’s lawyer on Monday, resolves one claim about whether details about a capital contribution should have been disclosed in May 2008.

Perry settled without admitting or denying the charges.

 

 

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Watch: Bank of America CEO calls end to housing problems on Bloomberg TV

Bloomberg TV is showing a clip of Bank of America ($9.36 0.15%) CEO Brian Moynihan declaring the worst is over for housing in the United States.

Check it out at 0:24: “Everythings we see points to ‘the worst is over’,” he says.

This is the guy dealing with Countrywide legacy assets. Do not take his words lightly.

Source: Housingwire.

Idaho judges iron out MERS mortgage role

Certainly not every case involving the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems is the same, but federal courts in Idaho have consistently issued opinions upholding MERS role as the trust beneficiary and as the rightful assignor of deeds of trust, MERSCORP said Thursday.

MERSCORP, the parent of MERS, has been under fire from various cases in multiple jurisdictions, where plaintiffs generally claim MERS has no legal basis to serve as the lender’s legal beneficiary or maintain a right to assign foreclosing authority to lenders.

Three cases from the U.S. District Court level in Idaho ruled mostly on the side of MERS when questions about its role in a nonjudicial foreclosure state were brought before judges.

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Spain Foreclosures Spread to Once Wealthy: Mortgages

Home foreclosures in Spain, which disproportionately affected lower-income immigrants after the real estate bubble burst, are spreading to formerly well-to-do families and businessmen as they run out of ways to pay mortgages in a deepening recession.

Spanish business people, upper middle class families and their loan guarantors, typically parents of first-time buyers, now account for 60 percent of foreclosures in Madrid, according to AFES, an association that advises homeowners facing repossession. Three years ago, 80 percent of foreclosures were on the homes of immigrants, usually the first to lose jobs and fall behind on loan payments in a souring economy. They now comprise 40 percent of the total, according to AFES.

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JPMorgan Chase Dimon : We Did Fed a ‘Favor’ in Buying Bear Stearns

On your knees, little people, and worship Lord Jamie. He did you a favor you ungrateful peasants. 😉 For god sakes, shareholders, vote this man out of his CEO job on your next proxy statement next year!

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) did the Federal Reserve a favor when it bought Bear Stearns & Co. during the height of the financial crisis in 2008, J.P. Morgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon said Wednesday.

“We did them a favor. We were asked to do it and we did it at great risk to ourselves,” Dimon said at an event in Washington held by the Council on Foreign Relations. To avert the collateral damage to the markets from the Bear Stearns collapse, the Federal Reserve provided major government guarantees to assist J.P. Morgan to acquire the institution in March 2008.

Dimon’s comments come after the New York attorney general filed a lawsuit against J.P. Morgan on Oct. 2 for alleged fraud in the sale of mortgage-securities issued by Bear Stearns.

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JPMorgan Chase To Pay $18 Million For Benefiting From Improper Recommendation To Trust

Oct 10 (Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co must pay more than $18 million to a trust in a suit stemming from its improper recommendation of a type of complex security that was unsuitable for the trust and benefited the bank, a U.S. state court judge has ruled.

The bank engaged in misconduct and breached its duties of care to the trust in recommending so-called “variable prepaid forward contracts,” wrote Judge Linda Morrissey of the District Court for Tulsa County, Oklahoma, in an opinion late Tuesday. That caused financial harm to the trust beneficiaries.

JP Morgan and the trust entered into numerous variable prepaid forward contracts between 2000 and 2005. A court, in 2007, ordered the transfer of the trust’s assets to another bank. The investment contracts between the trust and JP Morgan, by that time, had been settled.

The court, in an unusual move, also ordered JPMorgan to pay punitive damages, to be determined at a later date, along with the trust’s legal fees.

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Ireland Mortgage Bill, Not US, Aims to Aid Homeowners and Jump-Start the Economy

DUBLIN — With its economy still reeling from the housing crash, Ireland is making a bold move to help tens of thousands of struggling homeowners.

The Irish government expects to pass a law this year that could encourage banks to substantially cut the amount that borrowers owe on their mortgages, a step that no major country has been willing to take on a broad scale.

The initiative, which would lower a borrower’s monthly payment, could prevent a tide of foreclosures, an uncertainty that has been hanging over the Irish housing market for years. If it works, the plan could provide a road map for other troubled countries.

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HousingWire | Moody’s criticizes S&P ratings on JPMorgan CMBS

HousingWire | Moody’s criticizes S&P ratings on JPMorgan CMBS.

S&P gave investment grade ratings to a JPMorgan CMBS. Moody’s says the deal is junk. It’s a risk the investor will just have to take.