Judge’s Ruling Against 2 Banks Finds Misconduct in ’08 Crash
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Nomura’s offices in Tokyo. A judge said the bank misled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.CreditKimimasa Mayama/European Pressphoto Agency
Many on Wall Street have long argued that the banks did not generally break the law when they packaged shoddy mortgages and sold them to investors in the lead-up to the financial crisis of 2008.
But on Monday, in the starkest of terms, a federal judge dealt a strong blow to that version of history. She ruled that two banks misledFannie Mae and Freddie Mac in selling them mortgage bonds that contained numerous errors and misrepresentations.
“The magnitude of falsity, conservatively measured, is enormous,” Judge Denise L. Cote of Federal District Court in Manhattan wrote in a scathing 361-page decision…
Judge’s Ruling Against 2 Banks Finds Misconduct in ’08 Crash
