Bell, C.J., Harrell Battaglia Greene *Murphy Adkins Barbera, JJ. Opinion by Harrell, J.
Filed: December 20, 2011
EXCERPT:
A nonholder in possession, however, cannot rely on possession of the instrument alone as a basis to enforce it. The transferee’s right to enforce the instrument derives from the transferor (because by the terms of the instrument, it is not payable to the transferee) and therefore those rights must be proved. Com. Law § 3-203 cmt. 2; accord Leavings v. Mills 175 S.W.3d 301 (Tex. Ct. App. 2004 ) (“A person not identified in a note who is seeking to enforce it as the owner or holder must prove the transfer by which he acquired the note.”) The transferee does not enjoy the statutorily provided assumption of the right to enforce the instrument that accompanies a negotiated instrument, and so the transferee “must account for possession of the unindorsed instrument by proving the transaction through which the transferee acquired it.” Com. Law § 3-203 cmt. 2. If there are multiple prior transfers, the transferee must prove each prior transfer. U.S. Bank Nat’l Assoc. v. Ibanez, 941 N.E.2d 40, 53 (Mass. 2011) (citing In re Parrish, 326 B.R. 708, 720 (Bankr. N.D. Ohio 2005)). Once the transferee establishes a successful transfer from a holder, he or she acquires the enforcement rights of that holder. See Com. Law § 3-203 cmt. 2. A transferee’s rights, however, can be no greater than his or her transferor’s because those rights are “purely derivative.” Lawrence, supra, § 3-203:15R. Thus, the Substitute Trustees here, who possess an unindorsed note and wish to enforce it, had the burden of proving their status as nonholder in possession.
Michael Olenick, Gretchen Morgenson, and Yves Smith have all written pretty damning things about the foreclosure reviews persuant to the OCC consent orders with major mortgage servicers. (For my own previous thoughts, see here and here.) I’ve just started to peruse some of the engagement letters with the firms conducting the reviews, and the rot is even worse that these other critics portray.
What follows is in no way a comprehensive cataloging of the problems in the OCC foreclosure review process–this is just what I spotted from the briefest of perusals. Yet it is clear that there are two types of serious problems: conflicts of interest and flawed substance of the review process. I’ll lay both out below and then give some thoughts as to what could and should be done to remedy this farcical process in order to ensure some accountability to the public and justice for homeowners. The post concludes with some thoughts about the core problem–the OCC–and what can be done to remedy it.
We all would agree that all the banks share the same protocols in how they conduct business. All frauds.
HuffPO-
Confidential whistleblower documents that helped spark a massive state and federal investigation into how Bank of New York Mellon Corp charged pension funds for currency exchange, provide a rare window into how a bank insider aided a lawsuit against the bank.
The information provided by whistleblower Grant Wilson, who worked at BNY Mellon, included a detailed analysis of how the bank allegedly provided “fictitious” foreign-currency costs for pension funds.
The analysis included a step-by-step guide to how currencies were traded and internal profits generated by the bank, according to documents seen by Reuters. A memo detailing fellow employees also was provided.
They never lost a single penny from the foreclosures but made billions of profits. Course whatever they ask for they will pay a price to get it…except not to you.
HuffPO-
Banks helped create the housing crisis, and now they’re seeking a new way to profit from it. As Bloomberg reported Monday, several financial and investment companies have submitted proposals to the federal government, suggesting ways that they can help manage a program to rent out 180,000 foreclosed homes.
Fair and affordable housing advocates are calling on the Obama administration to reject help from the financial sector, or at least limit its influence.
“It’s really a question of whether the banks that made so much money creating this crisis are going to profit again,” Jeremy Rosen, policy director at the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, told The Huffington Post.
The Wall Street Journal ran a story today (12/27/11) entitled “SEC Ups Its Game to Identify Rogue Firms.”
“Rogue” is an interesting word with a range of definitions. When it is used as an adjective its meaning is: “a playfully mischievous person; scamp.” The trivialization of the most destructive elite frauds is one of the most common forms of what criminologists call “neutralization” of the moral content of wrong doing. Neutralization increases crime.
The actual story makes it clear that the criminals that the SEC was identifying were not “rogues.” They were the CEOs of seemingly legitimate firms. The SEC is identifying “accounting control frauds” – the frauds that cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime combined. The SEC is not identifying a few rotten apples, but roughly 100 hedge funds likely to have engaged in accounting fraud. The WSJ describes the SEC’s identification system:
“The list is the low-tech product of a high-tech effort by the SEC to crack down on fraud at hedge funds and other investment firms. After the agency failed to detect the $17.3 billion Ponzi scheme by Bernard L. Madoff, who wowed investors with steady returns over several decades, SEC officials decided they needed a way to trawl through performance data and look for red flags that might signal a possible fraud.
In 2009, the SEC began developing a computer-powered system that now analyzes monthly returns from thousands of hedge funds. Officials won’t say exactly how it works or how much it cost to build, but the agency has announced four civil-fraud lawsuits filed as a result of what it calls the “aberrational performance initiative.”” The SEC should be applauded for finally understanding that “if it’s too good to be true; it probably isn’t true.” Our agency put a similar system in place in 1984 to identify the S&L accounting control frauds that were driving that crisis. A quarter-century later, the SEC began to follow our well-trodden trail – but only with regard to felons inhabiting the middle of the fraud food chain (hedge funds).
The SEC has, inevitably, discovered that accounting fraud is common among …
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