An appeals court has ruled once again that the National Credit Union Administration didn’t wait too long to sue banks that sold billions of dollars in allegedly shoddy mortgage-backed securities. The decision undermines an effort by Nomura Holdings Inc., Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc and other financial institutions to derail the NCUA litigation, along with what’s left of similar lawsuits brought by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
In a 87-page ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled Tuesday that the statute of repose governing the NCUA’s lawsuits was extended by federal statute, and that agency can therefore press ahead with claims that big banks duped federal credit unions into investing in ill-fated securities. The Tenth Circuit had reached the same conclusion back in September 2013, but the U.S. Supreme Court later vacated that decision and instructed the court to reconsider in light of the justices’ June 9 ruling in CTS v. Waldburger, which dealt with similar issues in the context of environmental clean-up claims.
