Banks Get Edge in Talks on Foreclosure Penalties as Feds Settle
Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and fellow mortgage servicers are more likely to dodge a threatened $20 billion in penalties for faulty foreclosures after U.S. agencies cut ahead of the states by signing deals without fines.
A task force of 50 state attorneys general already was arguing internally over proposed sanctions when people familiar with the talks said the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Office of Thrift Supervision and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. began making the deals. While the U.S. watchdogs may yet seek fines, the pacts ease pressure on the banks and erode states’ leverage, said Gilbert Schwartz, a former Fed attorney.
“This puts the attorneys general in an uncomfortable position,” because it reduces the list of outstanding demands and helps firms show progress in fixing lapses, said Schwartz, a partner at law firm Schwartz & Ballen LLP in Washington who is not involved in negotiations. “By settling with the banking agencies, it sets the upper limit on what the banks would be willing to do. This seems to have drawn a line in the sand.”
Check out the rest on this weak settlement here…
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ONLY IN AMERICA………Banks can admit to fraud and go back to businss as usual……….The average American goes to jail???
Where is the justice?
a line has been drawn in the sand ….. quicksand.
the Feds and the AGs might “settle” with the criminal banks but the ripped-off homeowners won’t.
we are going to continue to fight for our rights.
Crime Shouldn’t Pay!
“You can fool some people sometime but you can’t fool all the people all of the time, now we see the light… STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS!”
What I find amazing is that Americans could take on the system very effectively if everyone who owned a securitized mortgage just stopped paying and retained counsel. Please stop waiting for anyone including the AG’s or any Federal institutions to broker a deal that an at-risk American homeowner will benefit from. Stand up and fight one individual homeowner at a time. Please let us help… http://diligencegroupllc.net/
American Middle-class Homeowner
-AMH
Sorry Charlie, but we “don’t have enough money to pay restitutions” or “if we did pay it would adversely affect our capital levels” is not a valid defense….just another example of too big to fail and too big to prosecute.