The National Credit Union Administration announced this week that it reached a $69.8 million settlement with UBS, as the company becomes the latest to settle with the NCUA over losses related to several corporate credit unions’ purchases of faulty residential mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the financial crisis.
According to the NCUA, it will receive $69.8 million from UBS in damages and interest for claims arising from losses to Members United Corporate Federal Credit Union and Southwest Corporate Federal Credit Union.
In 2013, the NCUA filed suit against Royal Bank of Scotland, Morgan Stanley and eight other institutions over the sale of nearly $2.4 billion in mortgage-backed securities to U.S. Central Federal Credit Union, Western Corporate Federal Credit Union, Members United, and Southwest, all of which failed during the financial crisis, due, in part, to RMBS losses.
In October 2015, Barclays and Wachovia, now a part of Wells Fargo, said they would pay a total of $378 million to NCUA as part of two separate settlements stemming from losses related to purchases of residential mortgage-backed securities.
In September 2015, RBS agreed to a $129.6 million settlement with the NCUA over similar claims. And in December 2015, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $225 million to settle as well. And last month, Credit Suisse agreed to pay $29 million to settle with NCUA.
Now, UBS becomes the latest to settle.
According to the NCUA, it accepted in February UBS's offer of judgment of $33 million in damages. With the addition of prejudgment interest determined by the court, the amount to be paid by UBS increased to $69.8 million.
UBS will also be liable for attorneys' fees and expenses in an amount to be determined, the NCUA said.
"Part of NCUA's comprehensive strategy for resolving the corporate crisis has been an aggressive litigation effort to secure recoveries from the Wall Street firms whose sale of faulty securities precipitated the crisis," NCUA Board Chairman Debbie Matz said. "Because of our ongoing efforts to hold responsible parties accountable, we are minimizing net losses to credit unions and should ultimately be able to provide a future rebate to credit unions for their Temporary Corporate Credit Union Stabilization Fund assessments."
With this settlement, the NCUA has now obtained more than $3.1 billion in legal recoveries in litigation related to the sale of faulty securities to corporate credit unions.
The NCUA said that it uses the net proceeds from these settlements to repay the Stabilization Fund's outstanding borrowings from the U.S. Treasury and to decrease the amount that surviving credit unions must pay to recoup the losses of the corporate credit union system.
The NCUA noted that litigation is still pending against UBS in federal court in Kansas for sales of faulty residential mortgage-backed securities to U.S. Central and WesCorp corporate credit unions.
A spokesperson for UBS said the company will not be commenting on the settlement.
