Regulators to Keep Tight Lips on Foreclosure Improprieties
This month we learned that regulators will not reveal any shenanigans discovered by the highly paid "independent" consultants big banks hired under orders from the government to review potential wrongdoing on their part in the foreclosure/robo-signing scandal.
This month we learned that regulators will not reveal any shenanigans discovered by the highly paid “independent” consultants big banks hired under orders from the government to review potential wrongdoing on their part in the foreclosure/robo-signing scandal.
The withholding means homeowners who got just a few hundred dollars in settlements and want to sue the banks won’t have the evidence to do so. The consultants, meanwhile, got $2 billion for their services, a sum amounting to more than $20,000 per file.
— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.
Rooted in Truth.Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone:
[I]t comes out that not only were these consultants not so independent, not only did they very likely skew the numbers seriously in favor of the banks, and not only were these few consultants paid over $2 billion (over 20 percent of the entire settlement amount) while the average homeowner only received $300 in the deal – in addition to all of that, it appears that federal regulators will not turn over the evidence of impropriety they discovered during these reviews to homeowners who may want to sue the banks.
In other words, the government not only ordered the banks to hire consultants who may have gamed the foreclosure settlement in favor of the banks, but the regulators themselves are hiding the information from the public in order to shield the banks from further lawsuits.
Independent by Design.
Your support helps ensure that rigorous reporting, thoughtful analysis, and investigative journalism remain accessible to everyone.
Support independent journalism.
Environment
JPMorgan again tops the list of banks embracing “disaster capitalism” as climate deregulation policies inspire more industry investments, new report finds.
Environment
As the country moves to intensify mining and oil operations, environmental and Indigenous leaders’ bank accounts are being frozen or closed.
Economic Justice
Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) have joined forces in a rare bipartisan effort to make top executives pay for their mistakes.
Lessons learned from the 2008 financial crisis show that taxpayer-funded blank checks to institutions do nothing to help those struggling
Because our banks aren't nationalized, its inability to work with Congress has resulted in another botched attempt at crisis management.
Its forced choice to bankroll hedge funds and other speculative ventures in repo market comes at a price to the middle class.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.