Female Brokers Sue BofA for Discrimination

Matt Taibbi: It's 'ripping off virtually everyone'

(NEWSER) - Matt Taibbi gives Bank of America the " vampires squid " treatment today, savaging "the ultimate Too Big to Fail bank" as "a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless criminal conspiracies we'll all be paying for until the end of time," in a lengthy Rolling Stone piece. "These guys are some of the very biggest assholes on Earth," systematically ripping off virtually everyone they do business with, Taibbi writes, "and on top of all that, they completely suck at banking." Among the many outrages he details:

• Bank of America, and subsidiaries Countrywide and Merrill Lynch, "pioneered ways to sell their toxic pools of mortgages to suckers."
• They conspired with other banks to rig municipal construction bids, "a mobster's crime, for which the accused used to do serious time," back when it was committed by "Eye-talians in gold chains instead of Ivy Leaguers in ties and Chanel glasses."
• The bank has been charged with scams specifically targeting the disabled, minorities, and the poor. "Seriously, who hasn't this bank conspired to defraud? Puppies? One-eyed Sri Lankans?"
• They often simply never pay required local fees—one Texas county alone estimates the bank owes it more than $100 million. "Think of that next time your county leaves a road unpaved."

Or else face public action

(NEWSER) - Federal regulators have warned Bank of America’s board that the bank will face a public enforcement action if it doesn’t take steps to fix its corporate governance, risk management, and liquidity, sources tell the Wall Street Journal . The bank has been operating under a confidential memorandum of understanding directing it to fix those things since May 2009, but in recent months regulators have warned the bank that if it doesn’t shape up, that informal agreement will become a formal, public order. More»

Colossal nationwide suit split into regional cases

(NEWSER) - Four months after the Supreme Court decided that 1.5 million past and present female workers at Walmart couldn't be lumped together in a single class-action suit , the first of what promises to be a flood of fresh lawsuits have begun. The original plaintiffs—who say they were denied pay rises and promotions because of gender bias—have filed class-action suits on behalf 95,000 of the retail giant's female employees in California, and on behalf of up to 45,000 workers in Texas. More»

Says it was misled about quality of mortgage-backed securities

(NEWSER) - With the Justice Department filing few criminal charges related to the financial crisis, AIG is taking action of its own: The mostly taxpayer-owned firm is preparing to sue Bank of America for allegedly misleading it about the quality of Bank of America's mortgage-backed securities—an accusation that gets to the root of the financial crisis. AIG wants to recoup more than $10 billion in losses in what might be the biggest mortgage securities lawsuit by "a single investor" in history, the New York Times reports. More»

Company says it's too big to be sued by 1.5M female employees

(NEWSER) - Walmart will go before the Supreme Court today and argue that it is simply too big to face a class action gender discrimination lawsuit filed on behalf of some 1.5 million current and former female employees. “They have brought a case that implicates 3,400 stores around the country,” Walmart’s lawyer tells NPR , complaining that it involves “women at all different levels of the store, from store managers to the entry-level positions." More»