A pair of Wall Street banks suing Bank of America Corp. over their soured investments in a mortgage vehicle created by Taylor Bean & Whitaker are seeking to look into the business relationship between Freddie Mac and the failed mortgage lender.
BNP Paribas SA and Deutsche Bank AG want to join in on a proposed probe of Freddie Mac, initially requested last week by Bank of America. All three institutions say they've watched Taylor Bean delay its own investigation for months, despite being authorized by the court to subpoena Freddie Mac officials and dig deeper regarding their business dealings with the Ocala, Fla., mortgage lender.
Without "a single document" produced as part of that court-approved probe, Bank of America is seeking to take matters into its own hands — and BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank want to make sure they have access to whatever the bank digs up. They're asking for permission to "participate" in the examinations and want the court to ensure they have access to the documents Bank of America unearths, according to papers filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Jacksonville, Fla.
Judge Jerry Funk is set to consider the request at a hearing Friday.
BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank are both creditors of Taylor Bean and investors in Ocala Funding LLC, a mortgage conduit created by Taylor Bean, then the nation's 12th-largest mortgage originator. Ocala borrowed money for short periods to fund Taylor Bean's home loans before they were sold to Freddie Mac.
The entity has come under scrutiny from Bank of America, which served as the trustee for notes issued by Ocala. The bank believes Taylor Bean may have improperly diverted Ocala loans to Freddie Mac to cover the mortgage lender's servicing advances and claims that those Ocala loans are its property.
But Bank of America isn't the only one making allegations with regards to Ocala. Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas have also launched lawsuits against Bank of America in federal court in New York, claiming it failed to protect more than $1.7 billion in cash and mortgaged loans it was obligated to secure on behalf of the banks in its role as trustee. Bank of America has disputed the allegations.
Taylor Bean shut down its lending operations last August amid allegations of massive fraud and the revocation of its right to make FHA-insured loans by the Federal Housing Administration. The company stumbled into bankruptcy protection a few weeks later and has since been rule by restructuring firm Navigant Capital Advisors.
