Archive

March 12, 2015

Miami-based lender Hencorp Becstone Capital L.C. agreed to pay $3.8 million to resolve allegations under the False Claims Act that it made false statements and claims to the Export-Import Bank of the United States in order to obtain loan guarantees.  According to the government, Ricardo Maza, a Peruvian-based former Hencorp business agent, created false documentation to obtain Ex-Im Bank guarantees on fictitious transactions on which no products were sold or exported, and that Maza then diverted the proceeds of the loans to himself and to his friends and business associates in Peru.  The allegations arose in a whistleblower lawsuit filed by Genaro Benites Caballero, the former owner of one of the purported purchasers, and Patricia Doris Lee Dominguez, a former attorney for the purported purchaser, under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.  They will receive a whistleblower award of $608,000.  DOJ

March 3, 2015

The DOJ US Trustee Program entered into a national settlement agreement with JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. requiring Chase to pay more than $50 million (including cash payments, mortgage loan credits and loan forgiveness) to over 25,000 homeowners who are or were in bankruptcy.  As part of the settlement, Chase acknowledges it filed in bankruptcy courts around the country more than 50,000 payment change notices that were improperly signed by persons who had not reviewed the accuracy of the notices.  DOJ

February 25, 2015

Texas-based mortgage finance company MetLife Home Loans LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of MetLife Inc., agreed to pay $123.5M to resolve allegations it violated the False Claims Act by originating and underwriting (through MetLife Bank) mortgage loans insured by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Federal Housing Administration (FHA) that did not meet applicable FHA requirements.  Whistleblower Insider

February 9, 2015

The DOJ announced that under its settlements with 5 of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers, 952 service members are eligible to receive over $123M for mortgage foreclosures that violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.  The statute generally prohibits non-judicial foreclosures against service members who are in military service or within the applicable post-service period.  The five mortgage servicers are JPMorgan Chase; Wells Fargo Bank and Wells Fargo & Co.; Citi Residential Lending Inc., Citibank and CitiMortgage Inc.;GMAC Mortgage, Ally Financial Inc. and Residential Capital LLC; and BAC Home Loans Servicing LP (formerly known as Countrywide Home Loans Servicing LP).  DOJ

February 3, 2015

Ratings Agency giant Standard & Poor’s Financial Services (S&P), along with its parent corporation McGraw Hill Financial Inc., agreed to pay $1.375B to settle charges it schemed to defraud investors in structured financial products known as Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS) and Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs). According to the government, S&P falsely represented that its ratings of RMBS and CDOs were objective, independent and uninfluenced by S&P’s business relationships with the investment banks that issued the securities. Instead, S&P issued inflated ratings that misrepresented the securities’ true credit risks causing RMBS and CDO investors to incur substantial losses. Whistleblower Insider

January 30, 2015

Maxim Chukharev, former information technology manager for Liberty Reserve, a company that operated one of the world’s most widely used digital currency services, was sentenced to 36 months in prison for conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. According to the government, Liberty Reserve billed itself as the Internet’s “largest payment processor and money transfer system” but instead was created, structured and operated to help users conduct illegal transactions anonymously and launder the proceeds of their crimes. According to court records, before being shut down by the government in May 2013, Liberty Reserve conducted approximately 55 million transactions through its system totaling more than $6B in funds which encompassed suspected proceeds of credit card fraud, identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, child pornography, narcotics trafficking and other crimes.DOJ

January 22, 2016

Virginia has recovered more than $63 million collectively from eleven banks to settle allegations that the banks misled the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Virginia Retirement System through the sale of allegedly misrepresented residential mortgage-backed securities. This is the largest non-healthcare-related recovery ever obtained in a suit alleging violations of the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act. The eleven banks included in the settlement are Countrywide Securities Corporation, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., RBS Securities Inc., Barclays Capital Inc., Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Goldman, Sachs & Co., HSBC Securities (USA) Inc., Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, and UBS Securities LLC. VA

December 22, 2014

French power and transportation company Alstom S.A. pleaded guilty today and agreed to pay $772M to resolve charges of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act through a widespread scheme involving tens of millions of dollars in bribes in countries around the world, including Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Bahamas. Whistleblower Insider

December 18, 2014

Robert L. Holloway, former CEO of US Ventures LC, was sentenced to 225 months in prison and to pay $15.2M in restitution for orchestrating a $33M Ponzi scheme resulting in $15.2M in losses to investors.DOJ

December 18, 2014

Houston investment manager Robert Andres was sentenced to 56 months in prison and to pay more than $3.2M in restitution for orchestrating a $72M investment fraud scheme resulting in approximately $40M in losses to investors. According to his guilty plea, between October 2005 and 2011, Andres recruited investors for Winsome Investment Trust, where he served as the sole manager, attorney and trustee, by misrepresenting Winsome’s assets, asset allocation and the manner in which investor funds were invested. Andres also misappropriated approximately $2.2M in investor money for personal use, including to pay his hotel bills and living expenses. DOJ