As it has been doing on a monthly basis during the current banking crisis, the FDIC has once again updated the page on its website describing the failed bank litigation that the agency has initiated. According to the latest update, as of April 12, 2013, the agency has now filed a total of 54 failed … Continue Reading
Possibly as a result of a barrage of recent press criticism for its nonpublic settlements, the FDIC has launched a page on its website to publish details regarding the settlements it has reached in failed bank claims. The page, which can be found here, acknowledges that it is not yet complete. Even in its incomplete … Continue Reading
The improving trend that the banking industry has shown for the last three years accelerated in 2012, according the FDIC’s Quarterly Banking Profile for the final quarter of 2012, which was released on February 26, 2013. Overall, the industry reported 2012 earnings of $141.3 billion, which represents a 19.3 percent improvement over 2011 and the … Continue Reading
The pace of bank closures has slowed to a trickle. There have only been three bank failures so far in 2013 (including one this past Friday evening, involving the Covenant Bank of Chicago, Illinois). But while bank failures have dwindled, the number of failed bank lawsuit filings has surged. On February 15, 2013, the FDIC … Continue Reading
In order to try to defend themselves from claims asserted against them by the FDIC as receiver for a failed bank, the failed bank’s directors and officers often raise affirmative defenses, either based on pre-receivership conduct (as for example, in connection with pre-failure examinations) or post-receivership conduct (as for example in connection with the agency’s … Continue Reading
A shareholder of the holding company for a failed Virginia bank, the Bank of the Commonwealth, has filed a securities class action lawsuit in the Eastern District of Virginia against the holding company and certain of the company’s directors and officers. The lawsuit, filed on January 22, 2013, follows after the July 2012 indictment of … Continue Reading
Picking up where it left off at the end of the year, the FDIC has filed its first failed bank D&O lawsuit of 2013. The lawsuit, which the agency filed on January 17, 2013 in the District of New Mexico, names as defendants ten former directors and officers of the failed Charter Bank, New Mexico. … Continue Reading
As the current wave of bank failure litigation has unfolded, the directors and officers of banking institutions rightly have become more concerned about the own potential liability exposures and interested in learning more about how they might be able to reduce their risks and exposures. In the following guest post, Joseph T. Lynyak III , … Continue Reading
One of the most vexing problems that can arise in the D&O claims context is when the amount of insurance available proves to be insufficient to resolve the pending claims. Although this problem can arise in many claims contexts, one particular context in which the problem can arise is in the context of claims by … Continue Reading
The FDIC’s filing of lawsuits against former directors and officers of failed banks increased “markedly” during the fourth quarter of 2012 after a “lull” during the second and third quarters of the year, according to a new study from Cornerstone Research. The study, released December 18, 2012 and entitled “Characteristics of FDIC Lawsuits Against Directors … Continue Reading
IndyMac CEO Michael Perry has reached an agreement with the FDIC to settle the lawsuit the agency filed against him in the Central District of California in July 2011 in its capacity as receiver of the failed bank. In the settlement agreement, filed with the court on December 14, 2012, Perry agreed to pay $1 … Continue Reading
As I noted in a post earlier this week, last Friday a jury in the Central District of California returned a $168.8 million verdict in the lawsuit the FDIC filed in its capacity as receiver of the failed IndyMac bank against three former officers of the bank. The verdict has occasioned a great deal of … Continue Reading
On December 7, 2012, in a comprehensive victory for the FDIC in its capacity as receiver of the failed IndyMac bank, a jury in the Central District of California entered a verdict of $168.8 million in the FDIC’s lawsuit against three former officers of the bank. As reflected in the verdict form (a copy of … Continue Reading
Insured depositary institutions continued to improve during the third quarter of 2012, while at the same time the number and percentage of “problems institutions” declined, according to the FDIC’s latest quarterly banking profile. The quarterly report for the quarter ending September 30, 2012, which the agency released on December 4, 2012, can be found here. … Continue Reading
Though the FDIC has filed failed bank lawsuits in a number of states during the current bank failure wave, the agency has filed a disproportionally large number of suits against former directors and officers of failed Georgia banks. On November 30, 2012, the FDIC filed yet another D&O lawsuit involving a failed Georgia bank, the … Continue Reading
The FDIC has been more actively filing failed bank lawsuits than may have been apparent. With the November 20, 2012 update to its online list of failed bank lawsuits, the FDIC made known that it has in recent weeks filed a number of lawsuits that had not previously hit our radar screens. In addition to … Continue Reading
According to a November 13, 2012 press release from their defense counsel (here), the five bank officer defendants in an action the FDIC filed against them as the failed bank’s receiver have settled the case for an assignment to the agency of their rights under the bank’s D&O insurance policy. The case involves the … Continue Reading
Trial in the FDIC’s failed bank lawsuit against three former officers of IndyBank commenced on November 6, 2012 in the federal court in Los Angeles. According Scott Reckard’s November 9, 2012 Los Angeles Times article (here), the parties’ counsel have delivered their opening statements. The case, which was the first failed bank lawsuit the FDIC … Continue Reading
On November 1, 2012, in what is the first lawsuit the FDIC has filed as part of the current bank failure wave against a failed bank’s accountants, the FDIC, as receiver for the failed Colonial Bank, has filed an action in the Middle District of Alabama against Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Crowe Horwath. PwC served as … Continue Reading
After a nearly three-month period in which the FDIC filed no new lawsuits against the former directors and officers of a failed bank, the agency has in recent days filed two new suits, both involving banks that were approaching the third anniversary of their closure. The FDIC’s latest lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of … Continue Reading
An overabundance of airplane time and a shortage of Internet access (not the mention my day job’s unrelenting requirements) have kept The D&O Diary on the blogging sidelines despite a host of noteworthy events in recent days. The march of events moves ever onward, but before the sands of time envelop recent notable events altogether, … Continue Reading
On October 5, 2012, in the latest in a series of decisions addressing the question whether or not corporate officers (as differentiated from corporate directors) are entitled under California law to rely on the protections of the business judgment rule, Central District of California Judge Dale Fischer held that former officers of the failed IndyMac … Continue Reading
As I have previously noted (most recently here), the pace of filing of FDIC actions against directors and officers of failed banks has slowed considerably as 2012 has progressed. Indeed, there have only been two new FDIC failed bank lawsuits filed since May, and none at all since mid-July (even though the FDIC has each … Continue Reading
In an August 14, 2012 opinion in the FDIC’s lawsuit against former directors and officers of the failed Haven Trust bank, Northern District of Georgia Judge Steve C. Jones affirmed that Georgia’s business judgment rule is applicable to the actions of bank directors and officers. Based on that determination, Judge Jones dismissed the FDIC’s claims … Continue Reading
