GeorgiaOn October 25, 2016, in one of the few failed bank lawsuits remaining from the bank failure litigation wave that followed the global financial crisis, and one of the very few failed bank lawsuits to go all the way to trial, a civil jury returned a verdict of $4.98 million in the Northern District of Georgia against several former directors and officers of the failed Buckhead Community Bank of Buckhead, Georgia. While the jury returned a verdict in favor of the FDIC as receiver of the failed bank on four of the loans at issue in the case, the jury found the defendants not liable for six other loans for which the FDIC sought recovery.
Continue Reading Failed Bank Litigation: Jury Returns $5 Million Verdict Against Failed Bank’s Former Directors

fdicAs we approach what will be the eighth anniversary of the peak of the global financial crisis, many of the effects of the crisis have subsided. But while the crisis and many of the worst of its effects have largely faded into the past, a number of litigated matters related to the crisis have continued to grind through the courts. Among other things, the wave of failed bank lawsuits – that is, lawsuits filed by the FDIC against the former directors and officers of banks that failed in the wake of the crisis – has continued to roll along. However, at this point, it looks as if the failed bank litigation has just about played out. Now that the litigation is winding down, it may be time take a retrospective look at the failed bank litigation wave.
Continue Reading As the Failed Bank Litigation Wave Winds Down, A Look Back

fdic sealIn the FDIC’s latest quarterly banking profile, the agency report overall reflects a generally healthy U.S.  banking sector. However, problems may loom on the horizon at least for some banks. In addition, the statistics reflect significant changes that have changed the face of the industry just in the past few years. The FDIC’s Quarterly Banking Profile for the Fourth Quarter 2015 can be found here, and the agency’s February 23, 2016 press release about the report can be found here.
Continue Reading U.S. Banking Sector at Healthy Levels, But Do Problems Loom?

questionsBank directors often have many questions about their D&O insurance coverage, and rightly so. If significant reversals at the bank result in liability claims against the company’s senior officials, the bank’s D&O insurance could be the directors’ last line of defense. In this post, I address two issues that bank directors often ask about: first, does the bank’s D&O insurance cover civil money penalties? And, second, as the credit crisis retreats further into the past, when is the D&O insurance marketplace for banks going to “return to normal”?
Continue Reading Answering Bank Directors’ D&O Insurance Questions

federal depositFollowing the recent bank failure wave, the FDIC filed liability actions against the former directors and offices of many of the failed banks, as detailed here. But the FDIC did not sue the former executives of every failed bank. Why did the FDIC sue the executives of some failed banks but not others? Was it because the failed banks the agency targeted had engaged in qualitatively different conduct? Or was it merely because the ones the FDIC sued had D&O insurance in force from which the agency could extract a monetary recovery?
Continue Reading Does the FDIC Target Only Failed Bank Directors and Officers That Have D&O Insurance?

ncOn August 18, 2015, in an interesting opinion that takes a close look at exculpatory bylaw issues and the business judgment rule under North Carolina law, the Fourth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s dismissal of the failed bank lawsuit the FDIC had filed against former directors and officers of Cooperative Bank of Wilmington, N.C. The appellate court affirmed the dismissal of all of the claims against the director defendants but reversed the lower court’s ruling as to the negligence and breach of fiduciary duty claims against the officer defendants.
Continue Reading Fourth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of All Claims Against Failed Bank’s Directors, Revives Negligence Claims Against Bank’s Officers

tenthcircuitIn an important decision concerning D&O insurance coverage in connection with failed bank claims, the Tenth Circuit, applying Kansas law, held that a D&O policy’s insured vs. insured exclusion unambiguously precluded coverage for claims brought by the FDIC as receiver of a failed bank against the bank’s former directors and officers. The Tenth Circuit’s decision arguably contrasts with the Eleventh Circuit’s December 2014 decision in the Community Bank & Trust case (about which refer here), in which the Eleventh Circuit had held that the insured vs. insured exclusion at issue in that case was ambiguous with respect to the question of whether it precluded coverage for FDIC’s failed bank claims. However, the specific language in the exclusion at issue in this case precluding coverage for claims brought a “receiver” of the insured company – language not present in the policy the Eleventh Circuit considered — was a dispositive factor in the Tenth Circuit’s conclusion about the exclusion’s applicability. A copy of the Tenth Circuit’s August 6, 2015 decision can be found here.
Continue Reading Tenth Circuit: D&O Insurance Policy’s Insured vs. Insured Exclusion Unambiguously Precludes Coverage for FDIC’s Failed Bank Claims

prAccording to the FDIC’s website (here), as of March 24, 2015, 44 of the 106 failed bank lawsuits the agency has filed have settled. So there is nothing particularly newsworthy about the fact that the parties to another one of the failed bank lawsuit had reached a settlement. Just the same, however, the

fdicThe banking industry had a “positive quarter” in the third quarter of 2014, according to the FDIC”s latest Quarterly Banking Profile. Banks continue to improve and are performing  better than during the same period a year ago. In the aggregate during the quarter, banks reported income growth based on growing revenue rather than just lower