Time to pay the bill has come. The Federal Housing Finance (FHFA) has filed Friday in New York a complaint for fraud against the banks it considers responsible for the subprime crisis. In the end, it is not twelve, as originally announced by the New York Times, but seventeen institutions (ten U.S. and seven foreign) that are affected by this complaint. Among them, the French bank Societe Generale.
Nearly $ 200 billion of securities
The FHFA criticizes all of these institutions have sold financial products backed by mortgages on the two parastatals of mortgages Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, between 2005 and 2008. At the time, the banks had facilitated access to loans of U.S. households to recruit new customers and sell homes often too expensive betting on rising prices.The system had finally collapsed during the summer of 2008, taking with it Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac.
The FHFA estimate that the seventeen banks have concealed certain characteristics of the securities they sold, including lying about reality checks on the creditworthiness of borrowers households. "The complaints allege violations of federal law governing financial assets and rights (common law) in the sale of securities backed by residential mortgages designed by these institutions," said the FHFA.
All the losses by the two organizations, which then 40% of the outstanding loans granted to the United States is estimated at 30 billion.Placed under public guardianship, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have so far cost $ 170 billion to American taxpayers.
The FHFA was assessed for each of the banks in the dollar amount of securities sold to two giants of credit (see box). In total, nearly $ 200 billion of securities that were sold. Most involved, the JPMorgan U.S. (United States) would have sold itself for more than $ 33 billion of securities. Societe Generale for its part would have yielded $ 1.3 billion.
"Fannie and Freddie knew"
The complaint of the Federal Agency is expected to lead to negotiations and a financial agreement to avoid a trial. In all cases, the procedure could be very expensive institutions in question, particularly in the largest U.S. bank by assets, Bank of America.The group should in fact not only defend his own actions, not the worst according to the FHFA, but also the mortgage lender Countrywide and investment bank Merrill Lynch, bought in 2008 payday advance. Last June, the U.S. bank said it had agreed to pay $ 8.5 billion to end the prosecution of several investors and intended to spend an additional provision of $ 5.5 billion to clear the situation with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The Wall Street Journal fell when it was the agreement to compensate the largest ever signed. The group also announced on the night of Friday to Saturday it plans to reduce its workforce by 10%, equivalent to the elimination of 30,000 positions.
The defensive line of Bank of America today is that Fannie and Freddie knew very well what they were doing."They said they understand the risks" and "now seek to hold other market operators to be responsible for their losses," the group said in a statement.
Regarding the French bank Societe Generale, no figures were given, but the injury is considered "important" by the Federal Housing Finance.
Amount of securities sold by banks
1. JPMorgan (USA): more than $ 33 billion
2. Royal Bank of Scotland (UK): more than 30.4 billion
3. Countrywide (United States, Bank of America): about 26.6 billion
4. Merrill Lynch (United States, Bank of America): more than 24.9 billion
5. Deutsche Bank (Germany): more than 14.2 billion
6. Credit Suisse (Switzerland): over 14.1 billion
7. Goldman Sachs (USA): more than 11.1 billion
8.Morgan Stanley (USA): more than 10.6 billion
9. HSBC (UK): more than 6.2 billion
10. Ally (USA, formerly GMAC): over 6 billion
10. Bank of America (USA): over 6 billion
12. Barclays (UK): about 4.9 billion
13. Citigroup (USA): over 3.5 billion
14. Nomura (Japan): more than 2 billion
15. Societe Generale (France): nearly 1.3 billion
16. First Horizon (USA): 900 million
17. General Electric (USA, parent company of GE Capital): 550 million
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