The closure of three more banks this past Friday night underscores the difficult environment now facing many banks and also suggests that the pace of bank failures is accelerating. These developments may also have important implications for the D&O insurance placement market banks may have to confront in the months ahead.
On November 21
Though multi-billion dollar auction rate securities settlements were announced to great fanfare some months ago, litigation involving auction rate securities continues to mount (as I previously noted, here). Two recently filed proceedings highlight the fact that notwithstanding the settlements, many investors’ grievances are yet to be addressed.
As a result, while regulatory authorities
On November 11, 2008, Citigroup (here) and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (here) announced plans to modify existing home loans in an attempt to help borrowers avoid further foreclosures.
These mortgage relief efforts unquestionably are constructive, even praiseworthy. But as noted on the Real Time Economics blog (here)
At what point can we declare that the subprime securities lawsuits are not doing particularly well in the courts? It may not yet be time, but there unquestionably are growing numbers of subprime lawsuits that have failed to survive motions to dismiss, at least as a preliminary matter.
The latest evidence of this phenomenon
The credit crisis recently entered a dark new phase, and this new darker phase has also already produced its own distinctive round of lawsuits. Like the ominous economic circumstances, the new litigation phase also seems darker and more threatening.
In the latest issue of InSights (here) — entitled "Has the Credit Crisis
The calamity that began as a U.S.-based subprime mortgage meltdown has now grown into a global financial crisis that has resulted in bankruptcies and bailouts involving some of the world’s largest financial institutions. Along the way, these financial institutions’ investors have seen their investment interests damaged or destroyed, leaving many angry and aggrieved. If a
In the latest of the decisions in which subprime and credit crisis-related securities lawsuits have failed to withstand preliminary judicial scrutiny, on October 6, 2008, Central District of California Judge Andrew Guilford granted (here) defendants’ motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ second amended complaint in the IMPAC Mortgage Holdings case, with leave to amend.
When the various broker dealers and investment banks recently announced their agreements with government regulators to buy back auction rate securities, the announcements raised questions about the continuing need for the pending auction rate securities litigation. But, at least based on a recently filed lawsuit, it now appears that the settlements may have opened the
In what is as far as I am aware the first class action settlement in the current wave of subprime-related securities lawsuits, on October 14, 2008, WSB Financial Group announced (here) that it had entered into a settlement agreement of the class action lawsuit pending against the company and certain of its directors
After the close of business on Friday, October 10, 2008, the FDIC announced (here and here) that state regulators had closed two banks, Meridian Bank of Eldred, Illinois, and Main Street Bank of Northville, Michigan. The closure of these two banks brings the 2008 total number of bank closures to 15.
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