Monday, April 15, 2013

Federal Reserve, OCC Invoke Their Purported "Trade Secrets" Obligation To Banksters To Stiff Congress On Document Request Centering On Types Of Foreclosure Fraud Abuses Committed By Each Mortgage Servicer

Reuters reports:
  • Two Democratic lawmakers lambasted federal regulators whom they accuse of using an obligation to protect bank "trade secrets" as an excuse not to hand over details of a botched review of home foreclosures.

    "Breaking the law is not a corporate trade secret," Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland told the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in a letter on Wednesday.

    The regulators reached settlements worth about $9.3 billion with 13 banks earlier this year to end case-by-case reviews of whether they had wrongly seized homes or begun the foreclosure process.
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  • Regulators had already turned over some information about the reviews, but the lawmakers wanted to look at documents concerning the types of abuses committed by each mortgage servicer.

    But regulators resisted turning over such information and said documents involved are trade secrets, or subject to confidentiality agreements, according to the lawmakers.