No doubt, this is the biggest litigation assault on the banks to date. The agency is seeking more than $190 billion total from the defendants. Just take a look at some of the banks’ exposure:
The FHFA wants JPMorgan Chase to give back $33 billion, which represents the amount that Fannie and Freddie spent on residential mortgage-backed securities purchased from JPMorgan or Washington Mutual (which JPMorgan acquired). Countrywide, now owned by Bank of America, sold $26.6 billion of these securities to Fannie and Freddie, and the FHFA wants all that money back, along with $6.5 billion that Bank of America itself received from MBS sales. The FHFA wants $30.4 from Royal Bank of Scotland, $11.1 billion from Goldman Sachs, and $14.1 billion from Credit Suisse.
