If your trust is listed in the initial Notice of Petition to Intervene complaint, I highly recommend you go to the court house and make sure your last page to the “Note”, which was filed is still there :)’

REUTERS-

On Wednesday night, Grais & Ellsworth filed a 29-page brief laying out its arguments for why Bank of America’s proposed $8.5 billion settlement with Countrywide mortgage-backed securities investors belongs in federal court, not in New York state court, where Bank of New York Mellon, as Countrywide MBS trustee, filed it. I’ll talk about Grais’s assertions in a moment, but first, I want to explain why the jurisdictional question is so crucial to the ultimate fate of BofA’s proposed deal. Two transcripts tell that tale.

BNY Mellon, you’ll recall, used a highly unusual device when it asked for court approval of the proposed $8.5 billion settlement in late June. The bank filed the case as an Article 77 proceeding in New York state supreme court, taking advantage of a state law that permits trustees to seek a judge’s endorsement of their decisions. Using Article 77 was a deliberate tactic by BNY Mellon, BofA, and the 22 institutional investors who support the settlement. The lawyers who put together the deal considered and rejected other possible vehicles for court approval, but decided that Article 77 was the fastest, cleanest way to resolve claims involving 530 separate trusts. The provision, which is usually invoked in garden-variety trust cases, gives broad discretion to trustees, who are generally assumed to be acting in the best interests of trust beneficiaries.

[REUTERS]

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