Bank of America to pay $8.5B to settle claims
Published 12:01 am Thursday, June 30, 2011
Bank of America and its Countrywide unit will pay $8.5 billion to settle claims that the lenders sold poor-quality mortgage-backed securities that went sour when the housing market collapsed. The deal, announced Wednesday, comes after a group of 22 investors demanded that the Charlotte, N.C., bank repurchase $47 billion in mortgages that its Countrywide unit sold to them in the form of bonds. The group argued that Countrywide enriched itself at the expense of investors by continuing to service bad loans while running up servicing fees. Bank of America, which bought Countrywide in 2008 for $4 billion, has denied those claims.
State fines Boeing for fuel spill into river
The state Department of Ecology says it has fined the Boeing Co. more than $100,000 for a 300-gallon jet fuel spill in to the Duwamish waterway. According to the department, the spill happened in May, 2010 at Boeing fuel terminal in south Seattle. It says that workers were delivering to a storage tank when they noticed the spill, which they thought was contained to Boeing’s property. Later, they noticed the fuel had gone into the water and contacted state and federal authorities. By then, the oil was spread too thin to clean up. Boeing vice president Mary Armstrong says the aerospace giant fully restored the shoreline by excavating the contaminated sediment, among other actions.
Banks told to lower retailers’ debit fees
The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that banks can only charge retailers 21 cents each time they swipe a debit card. The board raised the cap from its initial proposal of 12 cents per swipe. Banks and big payment processors including Visa and MasterCard convinced the Fed that was too low to cover the cost of handling transactions, maintaining networks and preventing fraud. Banks currently have no limit and charge an average of 44 cents per swipe. The Fed voted 4-1 to adopt the rule, which was required under the financial regulatory law enacted last year. Federal Reserve Gov. Elizabeth Duke opposed the rule. It takes effect Oct. 1, later than expected.
Southwest pilot says he’s sorry for rant
The Southwest Airlines Co. pilot who insulted gays and older workers in an open-mike rant has apologized. The 12-year veteran of the Dallas-based airline, James Taylor was caught on an open cockpit mike using slurs and profanity to complain that attendants were mostly gay or too old or too heavy for him to date. The comments went out over an air-traffic control frequency. Taylor said in an email this week to employees that the comments were “truly insensitive of me.” The Southwest flight attendants’ union said it dropped plans to file a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after Taylor apologized.
Herald wire services
