Compliance & Regulation

The House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee has invited Countrywide Financial Corp. chairman and CEO Angelo Mozilo to testify on Feb. 7 on the topic of severance packages for subprime executives. Mr. Mozilo, according to one executive compensation company, stands to earn $112 million in severance benefits if he leaves CFC which is slated for sale to Bank of America. CFC and BoA have not yet addressed Mr. Mozilo's future with the combined firm but he is expected to step down at some point over the next several months. The CFC chief is 69 years old. Also invited to testify at the Feb. 7 hearing is Stanley O'Neal, and Charles Prince, the former chiefs, respectively, of Merrill Lynch and Citigroup. Both were ousted after their firms reported large subprime-related losses.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has hired First Financial Network Inc. to market and sell $40 million in residential mortgage loans from the failed Miami Valley Bank. The Lakeview, Ohio, bank had $86.6 million in assets when the FDIC closed it in October, transferred all the insured deposits to a local bank, and retained all the assets. FFN president and chief executive Bliss Morris said she expects due diligence to begin in February, and the bid date will be in early March. "We are pleased to assist FDIC with this assignment," Ms. Morris said. "We have proven our ability to transact sales of this nature on behalf of FDIC and look forward to another successful portfolio offering." Based in Oklahoma City, FFN has an online loan trading platform that provides qualified investors with immediate access to due-diligence information.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco has received a regulatory waiver to start making grants of up to $25,000 to help low- and moderate-income homeowners refinance out of nontraditional and subprime mortgages and into a fixed-rate 30-year mortgage. FHLBank member banks and thrifts have to put up $2 for every $1 in grant money to participate in the new affordable housing pilot program. The $2 match is to ensure that members take a loss when the principal amount of an underwater mortgage is written down to meet a 97% loan-to-value ratio requirement for the new mortgage. In approving the grant program, Federal Housing Finance Board members stressed that they want the pilot program to provide sustainable mortgages for the borrowers who cannot afford the resets on their current adjustable mortgages. And they don't want the program used to "bail out" lenders that made bad loans. Other FHLBanks are expected to seek similar waivers, and the Finance Board plans to issue an interim rule for public comment.

The city of Cleveland has sued 21 lenders and Wall Street firms involved in the subprime mortgage market, seeking monetary damages under a "public nuisance law." The litigation is the latest in a series of municipal actions targeting lenders. The Cleveland lawsuit alleges that the lenders "financed and cultivated" the subprime market, leading to a foreclosure crisis that has proved costly for the city. Bank of America, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Ameriquest, Washington Mutual, Countrywide Financial Corp., Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Fremont General Corp., GMAC-RFC, Goldman Sachs, Greenwich Capital Markets, HSBC Holdings, IndyMac Bancorp, Lehman Brothers, NovaStar Financial, and Option One Mortgage were all named as defendants in the lawsuit.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would likely purchase the safest jumbo mortgages if Congress raises the GSE loan limit, but those fixed-rate and fully amortizing mortgages constituted only 30% of jumbo originations in the first half of 2007, according to an early draft of an Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight report. The government-sponsored enterprises would be "less likely to purchase non-traditional loans, particularly interest-only mortgages and negatively-amortizing ARMs," the draft report says. An OFHEO spokeswoman said changes are still being made to the report, which the agency calls a "Mortgage Market Note." To increase liquidity and lower mortgage rates in the jumbo market, Congress is considering legislation to raise the GSE conforming loan limit to 150% of median housing prices in high-cost areas, with a cap of $625,000. However, the GSE regulator is skeptical that the legislation would have much impact on the rates homeowners pay for jumbo adjustable-rate mortgages. "There is little or no evidence that the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lower the yields on fully-amortizing ARMs or on non-traditional mortgages," the draft report says.

The city of Baltimore has filed a fair-lending lawsuit against Wells Fargo Bank NA, contending that the San Francisco-based bank's subprime lending practices have led to high foreclosure rates in minority neighborhoods and cost the city millions of dollars in expenses and lost revenues. The city alleges that Wells Fargo targets African-American neighborhoods with high-cost loans, resulting in an 8.2% foreclosure rate, compared with a 2.1% foreclosure rate in predominantly white neighborhoods. "Wells Fargo has caused these foreclosures by targeting Baltimore's African-American neighborhoods for irresponsible and abusive subprime lending practices designed to maximize short-term profits for the bank," Mayor Sheila Dixon said. A Wells Fargo spokesman said its loan pricing is based on risk. "Race is not a factor in our pricing," he said. City attorneys are asking a U.S. district court to enjoin Wells Fargo from engaging in certain lending practices and to award compensatory and punitive damages. The city has retained Relman & Dane, a civil rights law firm in Washington, to work on the case.

MBIA Inc., Armonk, N.Y., has sought to stave off negative rating pressure related to its mortgage-related asset-backed securities insurance exposure with a $1 billion surplus note offering and by cutting its dividend. Combined news reports also indicate that MBIA is facing inquiries by federal securities and state insurance regulators related to the company's reports to investors about its mortgage-related risks. The company reaffirmed previous estimates for the fourth quarter indicating that it will take a $737 million loss for the period that is "principally related" to "insured securitizations of prime home equity lines of credit and prime closed-end second-lien mortgages."

Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll LLP, a Philadelphia-based law firm, has announced the formation of a multidisciplinary Subprime Lending Team. The group will provide legal support to clients regarding the litigation, government action, and business problems sparked by the subprime mortgage crisis, the law firm said. "As the subprime crisis grows, it's clear that the effects will be felt across several disciplines and throughout the country," said Henry E. Hockeimer Jr., a partner in Ballard's litigation department and a member of the subprime team. "The specific legal disciplines affected happen to be areas of real strength for Ballard: consumer finance, real estate, securities, commercial litigation, and white collar are all areas where the firm has great depth and experience." The law firm can be found online at http://www.ballardspahr.com.

It's not on the table today, but the chief executive of Fannie Mae says policymakers should consider creating a single national regulatory agency to oversee the entire housing finance system. "I think we need a more unified approach to housing finance policies," Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd told an American Enterprise Institute forum. He also said policymakers should consider a "Mortgage Reinvestment Act" to reward banks for making loans that help keep troubled borrowers in their homes, similar to the way banks receive Community Reinvestment Act credit for making loans in their communities. However, he criticized proposed changes to bankruptcy laws that would allow courts to "cram down" the amount of a secured mortgage, saying that tampering with the home loan contract will inevitably shrink the pool of capital available for housing finance in the future.

Fast-tracking loan modifications and freezing the interest rate on adjustable-rate subprime mortgages will not jeopardize the accounting and tax status of the mortgage-backed securities, according to an opinion by the Securities and Exchange Commission chief accountant. SEC chief accountant's opinion gives the green light for servicers to implement the fast-track loan modification framework endorsed by the Treasury Department, the Hope Now Alliance, and the American Securitization Forum. ASF deputy executive director Tom Deutsch welcomed the SEC's guidance. "It is imperative for subprime mortgage servicers to have confidence that implementing the fast-track loan modification segment of the ASF framework will not alter the accounting treatment of securitization trusts." SEC chief accountant Conrad Hewitt said in a letter that the vast majority of subprime loan modifications are expected to begin in early 2008. "The Office of Chief Accountant believes this is an appropriate interim step at this time to address this issue given the complexity and lack of specific guidance on the accounting and disclosure for these types of modifications." Mr. Hewitt noted, however, that the letter is not an opinion on the legality of modifying subprime mortgages.