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BofA Near $8.5B Deal to Settle Big Investors' Claims
Law Firm News |
2011/06/28 22:17
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Bank of America Corp. is close to finalizing a deal to pay $8.5 billion to settle claims by a group of investors that the bank sold them poor-quality mortgage-backed securities that went sour when the housing market tanked, according to a person familiar with the settlement talks.
The Charlotte, North Carolina, bank was continuing talks late Tuesday with the group, which includes the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Pimco Investment Management, the world's largest bondholder, and Blackrock Financial Management. It is expected to announce an agreement as early as Wednesday, the person said on condition of anonymity because the matter was still developing.
The deal comes eight months after the group fired off a letter to Bank of America demanding that it repurchase $47 billion in mortgages that its Countrywide unit sold to them in the form of bonds. The investors have argued that Countrywide's practice of modifying loans found to have faulty paperwork or those written outside of normal underwriting standards breached signed agreements with the investors. By continuing to service bad loans rather than speeding up foreclosures, the group has claimed that Countrywide ran up servicing fees, enriching itself at the expense of investors. The New York Fed is involved because it took over assets held by American International Group Inc., which faltered under the weight of bad home loans that it insured.
Bank of America, which paid $4 billion for Countrywide in 2008, has dismissed suggestions that its handling of loan modifications and other efforts to prevent foreclosure have violated the terms of the mortgage-backed securities that the investors hold. In November, CEO Brian Moynihan said he was in day-to-day hand-to-hand combat with investors' demands. |
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JJ recalls more Tylenol Extra Strength pills
Headline News |
2011/06/28 12:17
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Johnson amp; Johnson on Tuesday announced another Tylenol recall due to a musty moldy odor linked to a trace chemical.
The company's McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit is recalling one product lot of Tylenol Extra Strength Caplets made in February 2009 and distributed in the U.S. The recall totals 60,912 bottles, each of which has 225 caplets.
McNeil said it has received a small number of reports about the pills' odor, which has been linked in past Jamp;J recalls to the presence of trace amounts of 2,4,6-tribromoanisole. TBA is a byproduct of a chemical preservative sometimes used on shipping pallets.
Besides causing an unpleasant odor, TBA has been associated with temporary and non-serious gastrointestinal symptoms.
Since September 2009, New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson amp; Johnson has had about two dozen recalls of prescription and nonprescription medicines, replacement hips, contact lenses and diabetes test strips, including tens of millions of bottles of children's and adult Tylenol and Motrin.
The reasons have ranged from metal and other contaminants, to nauseating odors and packaging issues. Joint replacement systems so painful they required corrective surgery were also recalled, as were contact lenses that irritated eyes, along with potentially contaminated syringes full of the antipsychotic drug Invega. |
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Wis. Gov: Supreme Court needs to resolve discord
Headline News |
2011/06/27 13:33
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Gov. Scott Walker took the state Supreme Court justices to task Monday, saying their infighting has to end for the sake of public confidence in the court. His comments came after a liberal member of the court accused a conservative justice of putting her in a chokehold — a charge he has denied.
Speaking on WTMJ radio, Walker said that regardless of a person's political beliefs, there's got to be confidence that the people on the court can rationally discuss and debate issues.
Justice Ann Walsh Bradley told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Justice David Prosser tried to choke her during an argument in her office on June 13, the day before the court handed down a decision upholding a new law eliminating most public employees' collective bargaining rights. Walker had pushed the polarizing proposal, saying state and local officials needed more flexibility to deal with the state's deficit and coming budget cuts.
Dane County Sheriff David Mahoney said in a statement Monday that his office has opened an investigation into the incident at the request of Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs, who had jurisdiction because the argument took place in the state Capitol.
Tubbs said in a statement he asked the sheriff to handle the matter after consulting with members of the Supreme Court. He did not elaborate, and a spokeswoman for the agency that oversees the Capitol Police didn't immediately respond to a message. |
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Citigroup ex-VP arrested in NYC on fraud charges
Court Watch |
2011/06/27 13:33
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A former Citigroup vice president embezzled $19.2 million from the bank in a one-man inside job involving a series of secret money transfers, federal prosecutors said Monday.
Gary Foster, 35, of Englewood Cliffs, N.J., surrendered Sunday at John F. Kennedy International Airport after arriving on a flight from Bangkok. He was released Tuesday on $800,000 bond after appearing in federal court in Brooklyn to face bank fraud charges carrying a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.
Foster had been traveling in Southeast Asia when he received word of the case, defense attorney Isabelle Kirshner said after the court appearance.
As soon as he became aware they were looking for him, he voluntarily contacted the FBI and arranged to return, Kirshner said.
Officials at Citigroup Inc. — where Foster was vice president of the treasury finance department until quitting in January — said in a statement that they were outraged by the actions of this former employee and hoped to see him prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Foster used his knowledge of bank operations to commit the ultimate inside job, U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement.
According to a criminal complaint, Foster's department financed loans and processed wire transfers within Citigroup. From May 2009 through the end of last year, Foster siphoned funds from various Citigroup accounts, placed them in the bank's cash account and then wired the money into his private account at another bank in New York, the complaint alleged.
In one November 2010 transaction, Foster wired $3.9 million from a Citigroup fund in Baltimore to his New York account, the complaint says. That fraudulent transfer and seven others went undetected until a recent internal audit, it said. |
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Los Angeles Dodgers file for bankruptcy
Headline News |
2011/06/27 10:32
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The Los Angeles Dodgers filed for bankruptcy protection, blaming Major League Baseball for rejecting a television deal with Fox Network to give the storied baseball team an urgent injection of cash.
Monday's filing marks a dramatic attempt by Dodgers owner Frank McCourt to keep the league and MLB Commissioner Bud Selig from seizing the team, which McCourt has owned since 2004.
In a court filing, the team said it had been on the verge of running out of cash but that the Chapter 11 filing will allow it to meet payroll, sign players, pay vendors and continue playing baseball.
McCourt has been struggling to meet payroll and other financial commitments, having been heavily in debt and locked in a bitter divorce battle with his estranged wife Jamie. The bankruptcy could lead to new ownership for the Dodgers.
The filing preserves the status quo and prevents baseball from invoking its powers to take control, said Jack Williams, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law in Atlanta who specializes in sports law. Major League Baseball will have a major, if not the predominant, voice in the ultimate ownership structure for the team.
On June 20, the league vetoed the Dodgers' proposed $3 billion, 17-year television contract with News Corp's Fox, saying it would not be in the best interests of the team, the game and fans.
Selig criticized the use of part of a $385 million upfront payment to fund McCourt's divorce. McCourt has said the payment was crucial to the Dodgers' financial health. |
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Toyota class action suit to start with Utah case
Law Firm News |
2011/06/24 22:19
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The first lawsuit to go to trial in a massive class action against Toyota Motor Corp. over acceleration problems that led the company to recall 14 million cars will involve a crash that killed two people in western Utah, a federal judge said Friday.
U.S. District Judge James Selna told attorneys the case of 38-year-old Charlene Jones Lloyd and 66-year-old Paul Van Alfen, whose Toyota Camry slammed into a wall in Utah in 2010, is scheduled to go to trial in February 2013.
The case - Van Alfen v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. - will be the first of several bellwether lawsuits, intended to determine how the rest of the litigation will proceed.
Selna wrote in a tentative order that he hoped the selection would markedly advance these proceedings.
The Court believes that selection of a personal injury/wrongful death case is most likely the type of case to meet that goal, Selna said.
Toyota said it welcomes the Utah case as the first suit to reach court.
We are pleased that the initial bellwether will address plaintiffs' central allegation of an unnamed, unproven defect in Toyota vehicles, as every claim in the multi-district litigation rests upon this pivotal technical issue, the company said in a statement.
Toyota has previously argued the plaintiffs have been unable to prove that a design defect in its electronic throttle control system is responsible for vehicles surging unexpectedly. It has instead blamed driver error, faulty floor mats and sticky accelerator pedals. |
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