REUTERS-

Several Pimco investment funds are accusing the mortgage-backed securities trustee Wells Fargo of misusing noteholder money to pay its own legal expenses.

In a newly filed complaint in Manhattan State Supreme Court, the Pimco funds are asking for a declaratory judgment that Wells Fargo is not entitled to use MBS trust money to fund its defense against noteholder claims that the bank breached its duties as an MBS trustee. Pimco’s lawyers at Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann allege that Wells Fargo has improperly reserved about $95 million across 20 MBS trusts.

The Pimco complaint is the latest wrinkle in increasingly complex litigation between MBS noteholders and trustees. Pimco is one of several major institutional investors pursuing Wells Fargo, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and other MBS trustees for supposedly failing to take action against MBS sponsors as the trusts began to lose money. As I’ve reported, noteholders have managed to get past trustee dismissal motions in several big cases in state and federal court, but still face the considerable obstacle of providing loan-specific proof that trustees were obliged to demand the repurchase of deficient underlying mortgages and didn’t live up to that obligation.

[REUTERS]