Legal News

Countrywide points fingers of their own at AIG

By Richard Binder

In a lawsuit filed this week, Countrywide Home Loans Inc. complained that its insurer American International Group Inc. didn't cover more than $43 million in losses from failed real estate loans, many of which were bundled and sold as securities -- even though Countrywide paid more than $342 million in premiums to insure the loans.

Kurt Eggert, a Chapman Law School professor who has closely monitored the lending crisis, said, "Here Countrywide displays a huge amount of chutzpah because it's suing because its loans went bad, and it claims United Guaranty should have done better underwriting, when it's the failing of underwriting by loan originators that got us into this stuff."

Countrywide was also a focus of attention Thursday in Washington, where Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) released a 63-page report detailing the company's practice of giving discounted mortgages to influential people, particularly key lawmakers, staffers and other government officials. The VIP program included a wide range of people with connections or potential influence, including actors Ed McMahon, Roy Scheider and Uma Thurman; a Malibu sheriff's deputy; two Los Angeles Times advertising executives, Andrew Bunnin and Jeffrey Young; and U.S. Senators Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.).

Full story at LA Times.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on March 20, 2009 (boomark / email).