U.S. Sues Deutsche Bank Over Loan Practices
By LOUISE STORY
WashPost
The United States government sued Deutsche Bank on Tuesday, accusing it of lying about the quality of home loans it handled under a government program and demanding that the bank repay hundreds of millions of dollars of losses on those loans.
The mortgages, guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration, are expected to cost the government more than $1 billion. They came from loans issued by a company called MortgageIT, which Deutsche acquired in 2007.
The F.H.A. said it discovered the fraud in 2009, while reviewing its overall portfolio. At the time, loans were defaulting at record levels and worries were growing about the ultimate cost to taxpayers. Since the financial crisis, the F.H.A. has broadened its role in the housing market and now backs about one-third of all new mortgages, up from just 5 percent a few years ago. In the last couple of years, the F.H.A. has also overhauled its processes to improve quality control, and loans made more recently are performing better.
Officials from the Justice Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development said the lawsuit should serve as a warning to other lenders that are issuing loans using a government guarantee. At a news conference on Tuesday, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, said Deutsche “cannot get away with lies and recklessness.” He said there was not evidence to justify a criminal complaint and declined to say whether there would be more cases claiming F.H.A. fraud.
(More here.)
WashPost
The United States government sued Deutsche Bank on Tuesday, accusing it of lying about the quality of home loans it handled under a government program and demanding that the bank repay hundreds of millions of dollars of losses on those loans.
The mortgages, guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration, are expected to cost the government more than $1 billion. They came from loans issued by a company called MortgageIT, which Deutsche acquired in 2007.
The F.H.A. said it discovered the fraud in 2009, while reviewing its overall portfolio. At the time, loans were defaulting at record levels and worries were growing about the ultimate cost to taxpayers. Since the financial crisis, the F.H.A. has broadened its role in the housing market and now backs about one-third of all new mortgages, up from just 5 percent a few years ago. In the last couple of years, the F.H.A. has also overhauled its processes to improve quality control, and loans made more recently are performing better.
Officials from the Justice Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development said the lawsuit should serve as a warning to other lenders that are issuing loans using a government guarantee. At a news conference on Tuesday, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, said Deutsche “cannot get away with lies and recklessness.” He said there was not evidence to justify a criminal complaint and declined to say whether there would be more cases claiming F.H.A. fraud.
(More here.)
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