BofA FDIC Suit for $1.7 Billion Investor Losses Revived

BofA FDIC Suit for $1.7 Billion Investor Losses Revived

Bank of America Corp.’s lawsuit against the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for $1.7 billion in client losses was revived after the agency said that a bank at the center of the Taylor Beanscandal may have enough assets to pay the claims.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein yesterday vacated her August 26 order dismissing Bank of America’s claim against the FDIC, which it made as trustee for Ocala Funding LLC, a mortgage financing vehicle Taylor Bean controlled.

The case stems from a mortgage-fraud scheme at failed lender Taylor Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp. From 2002 through August 2009, Lee Farkas, while he was chairman of Taylor Bean, sold more than $1.5 billion in fake mortgage loans to Colonial Bank with the collusion of its employees and diverted more than $1.5 billion from Ocala Funding.

Bank of America expands rewards program for existing customers

Bank of America expands rewards program for existing customers

For those who deposit monthly less than $20K, forget it, BofA program doesn’t apply to you. Sounds like BofA is not getting bites from their customers that over $50K which was BofA’s original program…

Bank of America Corp will announce on Monday it will lower the threshold for consumers who qualify for discounts on loans and other benefits as the No. 2 U.S. bank seeks to win more business from existing customers.

Clients who have at least $20,000 in deposits and investments at the bank will be eligible for the benefits, according to an advance announcement reviewed by Reuters. The changes will be phased in starting this week.

Previously, the threshold was a minimum of $50,000 in deposits and investments.

The bank is offering lower rates on mortgages and home equity loans, higher interest rates on savings accounts and free stock trades to members of its new “preferred rewards” program.

Boeing : Rep. McCarthy Doesn’t Support U.S. Export-Import Bank–Update

Boeing : Rep. McCarthy Doesn’t Support U.S. Export-Import Bank–Update

This is going to be interesting…

Incoming House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Sunday said he would not support reauthorizing the charter of the Export-Import Bank of the United States once it expires in September, a shift that brings wide political and economic ramifications.

Mr. McCarthy’s comments, made during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, clarified what had previously been a more ambiguous view about the U.S. trade agency, which was created 80 years ago and guarantees loans made to help U.S. companies export their goods, among other things.

Mr. McCarthy’s predecessor as majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), helped rescue the Export-Import Bank in 2012 when some conservatives said they wanted the agency to stop backing loans. Mr. Cantor helped steer a reauthorization through Congress despite the objection of some conservatives. Mr. McCarthy of California supported the agency’s reauthorization in 2012, but on Sunday said the agency should no longer be backing new loans.

Asked if he would allow the Export-Import Bank’s charter to expire, Mr. McCarthy replied, “Yes, because it’s something that the private sector can be able to do.”

He added, “One of the biggest problems with government is they go and take hard-earned money so others do things the private sector can do. That’s what the Ex-Im Bank does.”

The comments bolster the position of House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas), who has called the Export-Import Bank “crony capitalism” and said it should expire. The development, however, could be seen as a blow to a number of U.S. manufacturers, particularly Boeing Co., as the government backs a significant number of its sales to foreign airlines.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and a number of companies were planning this week to launch a public relations effort to gin up support for reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank’s charter, but they will face an uphill battle given Mr. McCarthy’s new position.

“This is an all-hands-on-deck effort right now because we are really at a very critical time given the bank’s charter expires at the end of September,” said Christopher Wenk, senior director of international policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

According to the weekly German paper, Focus , various documents found from port of Hamburg. relating to the family of Saudi Osama bin Laden were also seized

According to the weekly German paper, Focus , various documents found from port of Hamburg. relating to the family of Saudi Osama bin Laden were also seized

They were on their way to Geneva: Various offshore bank account details of alleged German tax evaders have surfaced in a container in the port of Hamburg.The investigators seized the delicate cargo from the Cayman Islands – together with documentation of the slain terrorist Osama bin Laden family princes.

The port of Hamburg is a container with explosive financial papers of the Zurich Coutts Bank, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland, has been found.According to FOCUS Information customs officials had confiscated on May 20, the freight from the tax haven Cayman Islands and at a rough review of various documents of the Saudi family of the slain terrorist Osama bin Laden Prince discovered.

The officers off a taxman from Dusseldorf.The Rhenish investigators seized the container filled with 30 pallets steel container.Since then evaluate the financial experts from the material on the lookout for tax evaders.The cargo was to be transported from Hamburg to Geneva, reports the “world“from Saturday.

Royal Bank of Scotland : Germany seizes documents that may contain info on tax evasion

Royal Bank of Scotland : Germany seizes documents that may contain info on tax evasion

German customs authorities in the Port of Hamburg have confiscated documents that may contain information about the accounts of suspected tax evaders, German media reported on Saturday.

Two containers with around 14,000 documents inside were confiscated at the end of May, with some coming from a branch of private bank Coutts, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland, in the Cayman Islands, newspaper Welt am Sonntag said in an advance copy of an article due to be published on Sunday.

News magazine Focus also reported that customs authorities confiscated a container of Coutts documents from the Cayman Islands, which is frequently labelled as a tax haven by critics, on May 20. Finance experts had since then been evaluating the material, searching for evidence of tax evasion, Focus said.

A spokesperson for Coutts told Reuters: “We are not aware of any investigation into our Trust Company or its papers and we are working with the authorities to allow these papers to continue on their way.”

Identity Of Congresswoman Who Now Works for Wall Street Criticized In Elizabeth Warren’s Book Revealed

Identity Of Congresswoman Who Now Works for Wall Street Criticized In Elizabeth Warren’s Book Revealed

WASHINGTON — Future Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and her longtime aide Dan Geldon made the rounds in the House of Representatives throughout 2009, looking to persuade as many Financial Services Committee members as they could to sign off on her idea for an agency dedicated to protecting consumers from financial predation.

Warren recounts one such meeting with an unnamed House Democrat in her new book, A Fighting Chance.

I remember one meeting particularly well. A congresswoman who seemed really interested in what we had to say told me that she supported consumers and wanted to see them treated fairly. Then she raised a specific objection to the agency. I answered, but instead of talking about the issue, she moved on to another objection, and so on through a list of about half a dozen more problems.

Despite her many objections, I felt a little encouraged. Once Dan and I were out in the hall, I said, “Well, she didn’t agree with much of anything, but at least she was talking. Maybe we have a shot at persuading her.”

For a moment, Dan looked like he was weighing whether to give me the bad news. But Dan never holds back long on bad news. He explained that the congresswoman had just run through every talking point included in a press release issued by the American Bankers Association that morning. In order.

Oh.

 

 

A source close to Warren, familiar with the meeting, tells The Huffington Post that the congresswoman in question was then-Rep. Melissa Bean of Illinois.

On Friday, Politico’s Morning Money newsletter announced that Bean has been named to a high-profile job with JPMorgan Chase, where she’ll serve as chair of Midwest operations — a job previously held by Bill Daley, who vacated it to become briefly the chief of staff to President Barack Obama.

Bean lost her 2010 reelection race to tea party favorite Joe Walsh, who subsequently was knocked from office by Democrat Tammy Duckworth after he suggested in a debate that there need be no exception to abortion bans in cases of rape and incest because of advances in medical science.

During her tenure in Congress, Bean developed a reputation for privileging Wall Street over consumers and taxpayers. HuffPost’s Arthur Delaney profiled her in a 2010 story titled “Melissa Bean: A Democrat Bankers Bank On.”

Ruling on Argentina Gives Investors an Upper Hand

Ruling on Argentina Gives Investors an Upper Hand

Hard cases, it has often been said, make bad law.

That is just what happened this week. The United States Supreme Court, ignoring the pleas of the governments of numerous countries, including the United States, turned the world of sovereign debt restructuring on its head.

In so doing, the court most likely damaged the status of New York as the world’s financial capital. It made it far less likely that genuinely troubled countries will be able to restructure their debts. And it increased the power of investors — often but not solely hedge funds that buy distressed bonds at deep discounts to face value — to prevent needed restructurings.

The case concerned an appeal by Argentina, a country that the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit called, with ample reason, “a uniquely recalcitrant debtor.” This is a country that has made default a national habit over the last two centuries, making you wonder why anyone ever lends to it.