Gracias Judge Collyer... subimos !!!
A federal judge says the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. can't dodge a $10 billion lawsuit over the toxic remnants of Washington Mutual Bank.
Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., refused the FDIC's bid to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a unit of Deutsche Bank AB (DB, DBK.XE) over soured pools of mortgage loans made by Washington Mutual, or WaMu, a big player in the home mortgage boom before it was seized by regulators in the largest bank failure in U.S. history.
Deutsche Bank, as trustee for securitized pools of more than a half-million home loans, in 2009 sued both the FDIC and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM), which bought WaMu after it was seized by regulators in 2008.
The trusts at issue in the lawsuit were the focus of an investigation by a Senate subcommittee, which revealed that WaMu's own internal reviews found that "loans marked as containing fraudulent information had nevertheless been securitized and sold to investors."
According to the Deutsche Bank suit, either the FDIC or J.P. Morgan should be held to account for losses in the parcels of WaMu's allegedly fraudulent or poorly underwritten home loans.
The judge said last week it would be improvident and premature" to dismiss the suit against the FDIC until a decision is reached over whether the alleged WaMu liabilities stayed with the FDIC or were transferred to J.P. Morgan.
J.P. Morgan bought WaMu but says it left behind the liabilities at issue in the Deutsche Bank lawsuit. Collyer had already rejected the bank's bid to dismiss the suit in May.
According to the FDIC, J.P. Morgan took on the liabilities attached to the mortgage loan securitization trusts when it bought WaMu.
An FDIC spokesman wasn't immediately available for comment. A spokeswoman for J.P. Morgan wasn't immediately available.
The lawsuit is part of a broader battle over what exactly J.P. Morgan bought when it picked up WaMu for $1.8 billion as markets seized up and the worldwide financial system teetered on the brink in the fall of 2008.
Much of that fighting took place in bankruptcy court, where WaMu's former parent, Washington Mutual Inc. (WAMUQ), took refuge after being stripped of the thrift. WaMu's former parent struck a deal with J.P. Morgan and with the FDIC over how to split up billions of dollars in cash and tax refunds, assets that were claimed by all three.
Embodied in a Chapter 11 plan, the Washington Mutual settlement has yet to receive court approval. If it is ultimately approved, most creditors of WaMu's former parent will receive payment in full with interest, and some of the
fighting over who was to blame for WaMu's failure will end.
Final arguments over Washington Mutual Inc.'s $7 billion Chapter 11 plan start Wednesday in Wilmington, Del. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath, who rejected an earlier version of Washington Mutual's Chapter 11 plan earlier this year, is overseeing the case and will make the final decision on the revised plan.