Editor’s Note: in this guest post, former bond insurance insider Steve Ruterman discusses important considerations for investing in private label MBS beyond credit risk analysis, including how investors can benefit from understanding the differences in servicer behavior and business models. … Continue reading
If litigation is war, then discovery is the hand-to-hand combat that takes place in the trenches, costing plenty and potentially having a major impact on the outcome of the war in the aggregate. With most of the major MBS litigation … Continue reading
Editor’s Note: It seems that we can’t go three months without hearing about yet another species of misconduct by mortgage servicers that shifts losses onto the lienholders they are supposed to protect. We’ve read reports about force-placed insurance, inflated appraisal … Continue reading
(Updated version, including new 6th paragraph on subsequent announcement of larger probe into Morgan Stanley bonds) Having received copious kudos for engineering an $8.5 billion investor settlement with Bank of America over soured Countrywide residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS), “pitbull” … Continue reading
As loyal readers will recall, I laid it on the line a few weeks back and predicted that MBIA would win its loss causation argument against Countrywide/BofA, making the nation’s largest bank wish it had settled this bellwether piece of … Continue reading
With all eyes in the mortgage litigation world glued to the pending decision on Partial Summary Judgment in MBIA v. Countrywide, et al., commentators are beginning to speculate that a settlement may be in the offing between the two MBS … Continue reading
I woke Tuesday morning, Nov. 8 on the second day of the Way Too Big to Fail book tour to the news that Kathy Patrick, legal architect of Bank of America’s Hail Mary Countrywide settlement (background here and here), had … Continue reading
by Steve Ruterman, guest blogger It has been four years since the onset of the epic economic and capital markets fiasco known as the housing crash, and this crisis is far from over. Because the housing and mortgage finance industries … Continue reading
by Steve Ruterman, guest blogger Much of the focus of mortgage crisis-related litigation and news coverage has been directed at put-back rights as a potential source of loss mitigation for mortgage creditors, including investors and bond insurers. However, far less … Continue reading
