Credit unions

ST. LOUIS – Missouri Corporate CU announced this morning Dennis DeGroodt will retire as CEO of the $1.2 billion corporate credit union July 31 and will be succeeded by Kathleen “Kitty” Gray, its chief financial officer.

LOS ANGELES – Standard & Poor’s called on a federal court here yesterday to dismiss a $5 billion civil suit brought by the U.S. Justice Department claiming the Wall Street rating agency ignored its own standards rating risky investments sold to, among others, WesCorp FCU and Eastern Financial Florida CU, two of the biggest credit union failures ever.

WICHITA, Kan. – A federal judge has set a hearing for April 29, when he will consider whether to delay as many as eight of NCUA’s suits claiming recompense from Wall Street banks over the corporate credit union debacle and whether the cases should be consolidated.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – NCUA said it failed to recover any payments on insurance held by WesCorp FCU, U.S. Central FCU or any of the other three corporate credit union failures, despite millions of dollars in directors and officers premiums paid by the failed corporates.

LOS ANGELES – A federal court today dismissed civil negligence charges against Todd Lane, who had been chief financial officer of WesCorp FCU, as NCUA approved an out-of-court settlement with the last of what was once 16 defendants in the case sprung out of the collapse of the $34 billion corporate credit union.

PLANO, Texas – Catalyst Corporate FCU, the corporate credit union conglomerate constructed from four corporates—three of them failures—disclosed some of the details of last year’s purchase and assumption of the remnants of WesCorp FCU, the one-time $34 billion California failure.

LENEXA, Kan. – NCUA closed on the sale of the former headquarters of U.S. Central FCU, months after winding down the operations of the one-time $52 billion central bank for credit unions.

WICHITA, Kan. – A federal judge here yesterday dismissed the majority of $590 million of securities claims brought by NCUA against Credit Suisse Securities in the 2009 collapses of U.S. Central FCU and WesCorp, dealing the credit union regulator another defeat in its efforts to recoup losses for the biggest credit union failures ever.

METAIRIE, La. – Louisiana Corporate CU announced this morning it will receive a $600,000 settlement from Credit Suisse--the last remaining defendant in a ten-year-old National Century Financial Enterprises asset-backed securities fraud case.

WICHITA, Kan. – One of two federal judges scheduled to hear NCUA’s numerous suits against Wall Street banks over the corporate credit union failures has disqualified himself because of a potential conflict of interest in the cases.

WARRENVILLE, Ill. -- Members of $1.4 billion CenCorp CU voted overwhelmingly today in favor of the proposed merger with $1.4 billion Alloya Corporate FCU, the eighth corporate merger in the last two years but first since last October.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – NCUA this morning announced a $165 million settlement with Bank of America over claims that mortgage giant Countrywide, which BofA acquired in 2008, sold faulty mortgage-backed securities to failed corporate credit union giants U.S. Central FCU and WesCorp FCU.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – NCUA yesterday reduced its projections for future corporate credit union assessments and estimated this year’s assessments will be between eight and 11 basis points, or $800 million to $1.1 billion.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – NCUA said this afternoon it increased its subsidized lending from the U.S. Treasury to help fund the corporate credit union bailout last year to $5.1 billion, from $3.5 billion in 2011.

METAIRIE, La. – Louisiana Corporate CU has selected FI Compliance Solutions to supply the $1.2-billion corporate credit union with enterprise risk management services.

A federal appeals court has scheduled oral arguments for May 8 in a key case that will help determine the success of billions of dollars in claims by NCUA against Wall Street banks for the sale of mortgage-backed securities to the failed corporate CUs.

WICHITA, Kan. – Lawyers for Nomura Home Equity Loan, one of more than a dozen subprime lenders being sued by NCUA for the failure of some corporate credit unions, on Friday told a federal appeals court the agency’s in-house examiners at two of the failed corporates belie NCUA’s argument that it had to wait until after taking over before pursuing legal claims.