Bank of America settles mortgage suit for $315 mln
National News
Bank of America agreed to pay $315 million to settle claims by investors that they were misled about mortgage-backed investments sold by its Merrill Lynch unit.
The settlement was disclosed in court papers filed late Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan and requires the approval of a judge.
The class action lawsuit was led by the Public Employees' Retirement System of Mississippi pension fund. The fund claimed that the investments were backed by poor quality mortgages written by subprime lenders Countrywide Financial Corp., First Franklin Financial, and IndyMac Bancorp, a bank that failed in 2008.
The settlement represents another attempt by Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. to put its legal issues behind it. In the first half of the year alone the bank put up $12.7 billion to settle similar claims from different groups of investors.
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff has to approve the settlement, something that could prove difficult since the settlement includes no admission of guilt from Bank of America.
Just last week, Rakoff struck down a $285 million settlement that Citigroup Inc. reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The settlement would have imposed penalties on Citigroup even as it allowed the company to deny allegations that it misled investors.
Related listings
-
Court: State prisoners count at home in redistricting
National News 12/05/2011A state court ruled Friday that prisoners must be counted among voters back in their home neighborhoods rather than in upstate prisons for the purpose of redrawing state legislative districts, a likely blow to the slim Republican majority in New York...
-
Farmers Insurance Settles Class Action Lawsuit
National News 12/01/2011Farmers Insurance entered into a settlement of a nationwide class action lawsuit, In Re Farmers Med-Pay Litigation, pending in the District Court of Canadian County, Oklahoma. The settlement includes Farmers Insurance Company, Inc., Farmers Insurance...
-
LA protesters defy eviction efforts, go to court
National News 11/29/2011Occupy Wall Street protesters who defied a deadline to remove their weeks-old encampment on the Los Angeles City Hall lawn stood their ground Tuesday as they faced uncertainty over when or if police would push them out of the park — and if an evictio...