WaMu execs try to dismiss FDIC suit, criticize agency
Puget Sound Business Journal - by Kirsten Grind
Date: Friday, July 1, 2011, 1:21pm PDT - Last Modified: Friday, July 1, 2011, 3:00pm PDT
Kirsten Grind
Staff Writer
Email: kgrind@bizjournals.com
(Page 2 of 3)
Rotella and Schneider's motion directly attacks the FDIC for its role in WaMu's collapse in September 2008, calling the bank's seizure "reckless" and "widely-criticized." The motion, citing a series of articles that ran in the Puget Sound Business Journal in 2009, claims that WaMu was liquid when it was closed. The bank's downfall marked the largest failure in U.S. history.
"In March 2011, two-and-a-half years after Washington Mutual Bank was seized, the FDIC filed its politically-motivated complaint purporting to stand in the shoes of a bank that no longer exists and whose assets the FDIC hastily and improvidently sold off without regard to the impact on the creditors, shareholders, employees or the Seattle economy," reads the motion to dismiss.
The motion to dismiss claims that the FDIC never asked to interview officers of the bank during its investigation, and has alleged no fraud or intentional wrongdoing.
Former WaMu chief executive Killinger filed his motion to dismiss along with his wife, Linda. The FDIC named both Linda Killinger and Esther Rotella in its suit, alleging that the wives helped the bank executives protect assets as WaMu headed toward failure.
Killinger's motion calls the FDIC's suit "unfounded" and "incomplete." The motion points out that the FDIC and WaMu's other federal regulator, the Office of Thrift Supervision, approved WaMu's decision to expand into higher-risk lending.
The FDIC, "not surprisingly, says nothing about the worldwide economic crisis that would have led to the failures of virtually all large banks but for unprecedented government intervention that was not extended to WaMu," Killinger's motion to dismiss alleges.
1
Page 2
3
(Page 3 of 3)
This is a tact argued before by Killinger, who claimed at a congressional hearing in 2010 that WaMu was not part of an inner circle of banks deemed "too clubby to fail."
KIRSTEN GRIND covers banking, finance and law for the Puget Sound Business Journal. Email: kgrind@bizjournals.com | Twitter: @kirstengrind Click here to sign up for the PSBJ Daily Update.
Zurück
