Bank of America Corp. has asked a court to dismiss suits brought by BNP Paribas Mortgage Corp. and Deutsche Bank AG over their losses on investments in asset-backed commercial paper.
The Charlotte banking company sought the dismissals in a filing in New York federal court late last week. The unit of Paris-based BNP Paribas and Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank sued separately in November, saying they had lost $1.6 billion, in all, on asset-backed notes.
The notes were issued by a special-purpose entity known as Ocala Funding LLC, which funded mortgages originated by Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp. To reduce risk, the BNP Paribas unit and Deutsche Bank say, they insisted that Ocala hold $1.6 billion in cash or mortgage loans as collateral to be deposited with Bank of America, the deal's trustee. BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank claim that Bank of America improperly transferred billions of dollars out of Ocala accounts; did not track mortgages it was holding as security, as it had promised to do; issued false statements about the amount of collateral it held and took other steps that misled the two banks.
Bank of America said the deal's terms did not require it to monitor Ocala's use of the funds or to evaluate the entity's assets and liabilities before complying with withdrawal requests.
Ocala was a commercial paper vehicle sponsored by the now-bankrupt Taylor Bean. The latter was funded by Colonial Bank, which failed last year. The commercial paper was backed by residential mortgages.
