Cuomo to Split JPMorgan N.Y. Settlement Money with Schneiderman

  • Receiving Wide Coverage ...How Justice Built Its Case Against JPM: The $13 billion civil settlement JPMorgan Chase reached with the Justice Department on Tuesday, the largest penalty a single company has ever paid to the government, started with the Justice Department's discovery of a 2006 meeting in which bank executives decided to continue selling shoddy mortgage securities despite major red flags, according to the Wall Street Journal. As part of the civil settlement, JPMorgan acknowledged it told investors the mortgage loans in securities it packaged and sold complied with underwriting guidelines, while bank employees knew that many of the loans in question didn't. A team of government officials poured through documents detailing loans so weak they likely didn't even qualify as subprime mortgages — some had overstated income, inflated appraisals and skewed loan-to-value ratios. And a cooperating former employee warned her bosses the bank was vastly overstating the quality of the loans being securitized and sold in the run-up to the financial crisis. The New York Times' Dealbook take on the settlement focuses more on the negotiations between the bank and the government. The bank's CEO, Jaime Dimon was a "familiar number" on the cellphone of Tony West, a top Justice official. West repeatedly pressured the executive for more money to settle the case; the $13 billion is about half the bank's annual profit. "Mr. West's negotiating tactics underscore a broader strategy shift at the Justice Department, where prosecutors are seeking to hit Wall Street where it hurts most: the bottom line," Dealbook wrote. (Meanwhile, a recent issue of the New Yorker imagined a chummy conversation between Dimon and Eric Holder during settlement negotiations. What will become of that $13 billion? According to the Financial Times, about $4 billion will actually go to struggling homeowners. The rest will be divided between the Department of Justice, attorneys general from states including New York and California, the National Credit Union Administration and the Federal Housing Finance Authority.

    November 20
  • JPMorgan Chase's record $13 billion settlement has significant implications for the financial industry, but they may not be what casual observers expect. Following is a guide to the key takeaways from the deal.

    October 20

Governor Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman agreed to split the first $163 million of New York's $613 million share of a settlement with JPMorgan Chase (JPM) over mortgage bond sales, according to their offices.

The two Democrats had been dueling over the funds, a piece of a $13 billion federal-state settlement with the bank. The deal worked out between the two officials directs about $81.5 million to Cuomo's control, where it'll go toward housing programs, according to Rich Azzopardi, the Cuomo spokesman.

The remaining $81.5 million will be distributed by Schneiderman's office to anti-foreclosure programs, Matt Mittenthal, a spokesman for Schneiderman, said in a statement yesterday.

"This agreement on the first year of funding for the JPMorgan settlement will provide help to those who have been hurt most by the housing crisis, and make certain that this money will be dispersed with maximum accountability and oversight," Azzopardi said in an e-mailed statement.

In November, JPMorgan settled federal probes into the bank's sale of mortgage bonds that officials said helped fuel the financial chaos of 2008.

An earlier pact Schneiderman reached with JPMorgan allowed him to spend 85 percent of the money over four years to reduce foreclosures, prosecute financial fraud and promote investors' interests, giving the state treasury no more than 15 percent. The first drawdown was set at $163 million for November 2013, according to the agreement signed Nov. 19.

Cuomo's office contended that the structure of the deal gave the attorney general too much leeway and too little oversight over the funds. The accord struck yesterday requires the attorney general to go through the state contracting process, and the reviews that come with it, when spending the funds, Azzopardi said.

The attorney general "looks forward to using his discretion to allocate funds from this and future bank settlements in an open and transparent way to help as many New York families as possible," according to the statement from Mittenthal.

The money will be directed to several programs, according to Schneiderman's office. Some will be used to fund subsidies to reduce principal, and refinance and guarantee mortgages in exchange for loan modifications. Another part will help finance a program created by Schneiderman in June 2012 that provides homeowners with legal counseling to help avoid foreclosure. The funds will also help support development by nonprofit groups that assemble land from foreclosures, according to the office.

Cuomo will propose his fourth budget today.

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