HSBC Inks $45M Deal To Settle Euribor Investor Claims

Law360, Los Angeles (January 12, 2017, 8:09 PM EST) — Investors suing big banks over alleged manipulation of Euribor, the euro interbank offered rate, asked a New York federal court Wednesday to sign off on a $45 million settlement with HSBC Bank PLC.

The proposed deal would provide relief to a class of investors who traded on Euribor products during a nearly seven-year period, and release HSBC from allegations that it unlawfully tampered with the right in violation of antitrust laws and commodities laws.

HSBC has said that its affiliate’s alleged Euribor manipulation was limited to..

Source: Law360

MBS Investor Wants Claims Revived In $1.6B BofA Suit

Law360, Washington (August 11, 2014, 1:56 PM ET) — In multidistrict litigation over mortgage-backed securities sold by Bank of America Corp., Royal Park Investments SA/NV asked a California federal court Friday to revive its claims against the bank over $1.6 billion in the allegedly toxic MBS, saying material facts were ignored when a judge dismissed the suit.

RPI — a special purpose investment entity created by the Belgian government to hold bad assets after the financial collapse of Fortis Holding NV and its subsidiary Fortis Bank SA/NV — asked U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer…

Source: Law360

PNC’S DOROTHY THOMAS AFFIDAVIT – FOR AN INVESTOR TO ACQUIRE THE RIGHT TO FORECLOSE, IT MUST OBTAIN AND RECORD AN ASSIGNMENT

As Ms. Thomas explains, ordinarily, investors acquire from loan originators such as NCMC, and now PNC, the right to receive income from the mortgage. In return, investors pay NCMC or PNC a fee from the payments they collect for administering all day-to-day activities on the loan. (Tomas Affidavit at ¶4). These activities range from performing collection activities and posting payments to enforcing delinquent loans through foreclosures. (Id. at ¶4). For an investor to acquire the right to foreclose on the mortgage securing a particular loan in which it invests, it must (1) obtain and record an assignment from the originator of the note evidencing the loan and the mortgage securing the loan and (2) take physical possession of the original note and mortgage.

Here is the court document. Click here.

Investors Who Bought Foreclosed Homes in Bulk Look to Sell

Investors Who Bought Foreclosed Homes in Bulk Look to Sell

A year ago, buying foreclosed homes to rent out was the sure-thing trade for investment firms backed by money from private equitycompanies, hedge funds and pension systems. But with the supply of cheap foreclosed homes dwindling, some early investors are looking to cash out a bit by flipping homes to competitors.

The Waypoint Real Estate Group, one of the first companies to raise money from private investors to buy foreclosed homes, is quietly shopping as many as 2,000 houses in California that it acquired in the last few years in several private investment funds, said three people who had been briefed on the matter but were not authorized to discuss it. The homes, which are largely rented, are being shown to other companies backed by investor money that have also scooped up distressed houses in states including Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Nevada.

Waypoint is considering selling about half of its 4,000 homes. Some of the biggest institutional investors in the market for foreclosed homes — companies like the Blackstone Group, American Homes 4 Rent and American Residential Properties — have slowed their pace of acquisitions in response to an increase in home prices and a dearth of foreclosed homes that do not require significant renovation.

Goldman Wins Toss of $450M Mortgage Investor Suit

Goldman Wins Toss of $450M Mortgage Investor Suit

Law360, Los Angeles (June 13, 2014, 7:54 PM ET) — A New York state judge on Friday threw out a $450 million residential mortgage-backed securities lawsuit against Goldman Sachs Group Inc., finding the investor plaintiffs didn’t do their homework before buying in to the deal.

Judge Charles E. Ramos declined Goldman’s bids to dump the suit for standing or timeliness, but agreed that, as so-called sophisticated investors, plaintiff Phoenix Light SF Ltd. should have done its own due diligence on the loans in the portfolio before agreeing to hand over its money for the deal, according…

Mortgage investors’ inevitable constitutional challenge to eminent domain

Mortgage investors’ inevitable constitutional challenge to eminent domain

On Tuesday, the small California city of Richmond announced that it has sent notices to 624 homeowners whose houses are worth less than they owe on their mortgages. Richmond said it intended to buy their mortgages for 80 percent of the fair value of their houses and to help them refinance with new, more affordable mortgages. In the event homeowners don’t want to participate in the program, Richmond said it would use its power of eminent domain to seize the mortgage loans.

Yes, the much-discussed eminent domain mortgage seizure idea is finally being realized, despite vehement opposition from just about the entire financial industry. It’s been more than a year since a San Francisco outfit called Mortgage Resolution Partners first floated the concept of partnering with troubled cities to reduce foreclosures by using the city’s eminent domain power to seize mortgages of underwater homeowners in the name of the public good. (MRP’s role is to provide cities with capital for the eminent domain purchases, issue modified mortgages to homeowners and then bundle and resell the new loans as mortgage-backed securities.) Proponents have pitched the plan as a public boon, a way to keep homeowners in their houses and preserve neighborhoods that would otherwise be blighted with foreclosures. The concept was alluring enough that over the last year, officials in several California cities, as well as North Las Vegas and even Chicago, have toyed with using eminent domain to stave off foreclosures.

Before Richmond, however, all of the cities that considered the scheme have been dissuaded, in part by concerted financial industry opposition. Investors in mortgage-backed securities hate the eminent domain idea. No mystery there: The vast majority of the mortgage loans that cities want to seize belong to MBS trusts. When cities talk about buying mortgages for 80 percent of the current value of a house, they’re not accounting for the value of the seized loan to the MBS trust that actually owns the mortgage, especially because these eminent domain proposals call for the takeover of performing loans, not mortgages on which homeowners have already defaulted. (More than 440 of the homeowners that received notices from the city of Richmond are up-to-date on their mortgage payments.) So as Timothy Cameron, the head of the Asset Management Group of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, explained to me on Thursday, MBS investors believe that they’re twice injured by mortgage seizures under eminent domain plans. First, they’re shortchanged on the value of the revenue stream from a performing loan; and second, they’re damages by the decline in the value of their mortgage-backed securities, which are worth less when performing loans are terminated.