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State attorney general files suit against Morgan Stanley over false claims and securities violations
SAN FRANCISCO - Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today filed a lawsuit against investment bank Morgan Stanley for misrepresentations about complex investments such as residential mortgage-backed securities, in which large pools of home loans were packaged together and sold to investors.
These misrepresentations contributed to the global financial crisis and to major losses by investors including California's public pension funds, which are responsible for the retirement security of California peace officers, firefighters, teachers, and other public employees.
The complaint, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that Morgan Stanley violated the False Claims Act, the California Securities Law and other state laws by concealing or understating the risks of intricate investments involving large numbers of underlying loans or other assets.
In addition to residential mortgage-backed securities, the complaint also focuses on "structured investment vehicle" investments, which involved not just packages of residential mortgage loans but also other types of debt of individuals and corporations.
“Morgan Stanley’s conduct in this case evidenced a culture of greed and deception that helped create a devastating economic crisis and crippled California’s budget,” said Attorney General Harris. “This lawsuit is necessary in order to hold Morgan Stanley accountable for the destruction it caused to California, our people, and our pension funds.”
Specifically, the complaint alleges that, from 2004 to 2007, Morgan Stanley assembled and sold billions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities, many of which contained risky loans made by Morgan Stanley subsidiary Saxon, or by New Century, a mortgage lender which received crucial funding from Morgan Stanley.
Morgan Stanley purchased and bundled high-risk loans from subprime lenders like New Century into seemingly safe investments, even though it knew the lenders were “not [using] a lot of common sense” when approving the loans, the complaint alleges.
Additionally, the complaint alleges that Morgan Stanley did not disclose the risks because it did not want its concerns about loan quality to become a “relationship killer” that would cause it to lose its lucrative business with companies making the risky loans.
Among other things, Morgan Stanley's offering documents, which were required to fully and accurately inform investors about the risks, actually misrepresented the quality of the loans contained in the investment packages, by failing to disclose that many of them were underwater (the mortgage was more than the property was worth) and by failing to disclose the number of delinquent loans.
They also used exaggerated appraisals which overstated the value of the properties securing the loans, and knowingly presented incorrect data concerning owner occupancy and loan purpose, which tended to understate the riskiness of the loans.
The complaint goes on to allege that Morgan Stanley sometimes even took loans that it had already decided not to include in its investment packages because they were too risky, and then included them in later investment packages, despite knowing the problems with the loans, and doing nothing to fix them.
The complaint alleges that the lack of disclosure prompted a Morgan Stanley employee to observe to his co-workers that someone “could probably retire by shorting these upcoming . . . deals,” “someone needs to benefit from this mess.”
The complaint also alleges that Morgan Stanley played a central role in crafting the Cheyne structured investment vehicle, which sold supposedly safe short-term investments based on mortgage-backed securities and other complex investments.
Investors were particularly reliant on accurate disclosure of the risks because of the complicated nature of these investments.
The complaint alleges, however, that while Morgan Stanley knew of significant risks, it nevertheless worked to portray the investments as extremely safe.
In fact, Morgan Stanley managed to procure extremely high credit ratings, in some cases the same ratings as the very safest investments such as U.S. government bonds, for investments in Cheyne notes.
Morgan Stanley bragged that it “shaped rating agency technology” to “get . . . the rating we wanted in the end,” prompting a SIV manager to observe, “it is an amazing set of feats to move the rating agencies so far.” Unfortunately, the result of Morgan Stanley's success was huge losses to investors when the SIV failed.
The California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) – two of the nation's largest institutional investors – lost hundred of millions of dollars on these Morgan Stanley investments.
CalPERS provides retirement security and health plans to more than 1.6 million California firefighters, peace officers, and other public employees. CalSTRS provides retirement, disability, and survivor benefits for over 850,000 of California’s pre-kindergarten through community college educators and their families.
The lawsuit arises from a multiyear investigation into the issuance and rating of mortgage-backed securities by Attorney General Harris's California Mortgage Fraud Strike Force.
The Attorney General’s Mortgage Fraud Strike Force was created in May 2011 to comprehensively investigate misconduct in the mortgage industry.
As a result of that investigation, Attorney General Harris has to date recovered over $900 million for California’s public pension funds in settlements with three banks and a credit rating agency over misrepresentations in connection with structured finance investments sold to CalPERS and CalSTRS.
The Attorney General's additional efforts to investigate the mortgage crisis include securing an estimated $18 billion for California in the National Mortgage Settlement and sponsoring the California Homeowner Bill of Rights, a package of laws instituting permanent mortgage-related reforms.
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SAN FRANCISCO – Attorney General Kamala D. Harris on Wednesday announced a preliminary approval of settlements resolving allegations that LG, Hitachi, Panasonic, Toshiba, and Samsung, companies all based in Japan or Korea, fixed prices on critical components of televisions and computer monitors from 1995 to 2007.
Those critical components, known as Cathode Ray Tubes or CRTs, were used to display images on computer monitors and televisions screens before they were replaced by flat screens. The court has approved the settlement pending valid objections submitted within 60 days.
The companies’ price fixing scheme caused damage to California consumers and government entities that overpaid for their televisions and computers. The announced settlement has led to legally enforceable judgments against these foreign companies.
“LG, Hitachi, Panasonic, Toshiba, and Samsung deliberately targeted the U.S. market to raise prices for televisions and computers worldwide,” said Attorney General Harris. “These settlements bring justice and relief to California consumers and end the malicious practice of price-fixing by these companies.”
The settlements, which were filed in San Francisco Superior Court, require all five companies to pay a total of $4.95 million to settle claims of overcharges paid by California government entities, general damages suffered by the State’s economy, and civil penalties.
The settlements require that the companies pay back the illegally obtained profits to those affected by their actions. In addition, the settlements include injunctive relief, which requires that each company engage in company-wide antitrust compliance training and reporting that involves products in addition to CRTs and extends to foreign companies and subsidiaries.
Finally, the settlements include requirements, enforceable by the court via fines and imprisonment, to prevent future violations of antitrust law.
In 2011, after the Office of Attorney General Harris conducted a confidential investigation into price-fixing involving CRTs, Attorney General Harris filed complaints against these companies for having entered into a price-fixing conspiracy of critical components of television and computer screens.
That conspiracy involved top-level meetings of key executive decision-makers in Asia and Europe to set prices and outputs of CRTs. It also involved worldwide meetings among lower-level executives to exchange confidential information.
Californian subsidiaries of these companies were involved in this conspiracy and took on the role of monitoring the prices of televisions and computers in California stores.
This case, filed by Attorney General Harris, requested the court award damages to California consumers. A parallel case filed by private counsel in federal court, known as the Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs, also requested damages on behalf of Californians, and Attorney General Harris and the Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs coordinated their discovery and settlement efforts.
Due to these coordinated efforts, California consumers or sole proprietorships that purchased at least one television or computer between 1995 and 2007 can make a claim, with a guaranteed minimum check of $25.
All eligible California consumers and sole proprietorships can file claims for reimbursement at https://www.crtclaims.com/. The new deadline for filing those claims is June 30, 2016.
In December 2015, Attorney General Harris announced a settlement resolving allegations that Pratibha Syntex Ltd., a company based in India, gained an unfair competitive advantage over American-based companies by using pirated software in the production of clothing imported and sold in California.
The settlement, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, required Pratibha Syntex to pay $100,000 in restitution, prohibited Pratibha Syntex from using unlicensed software or reproducing any part of a copyrighted software program without the permission of the legitimate copyright holder, and required the company to perform four complete audits of the software on their computers and fix any violations within 45 days.
That case marked the first time a state has secured a legally enforceable judgment against an international company for these types of violations.
Copies of the complaint, memorandum in support of preliminary approval, and the order granting preliminary approval, are all available at www.oag.ca.gov/news . Further details also can be found at http://oag.ca.gov/consumers/crt_notice .
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