New York Sues Credit Suisse For Misrepresentations about Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities

The New York AG filed a Martin Act complaint against Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and its affiliates for making fraudulent misrepresentations and omissions to promote the sale of residential mortgage­-backed securities (RMBS) to investors.

According to the complaint, Credit Suisse deceived investors as to the care with which they evaluated the quality of mortgage loans packaged into residential mortgage-backed securities prior to 2008. RMBS sponsored and underwritten by Credit Suisse in 2006 and 2007 have suffered losses of approximately $11.2 billion. Credit Suisse led its investors to believe that the quality of the loans in its mortgage-backed securities had been carefully evaluated and would be continuously monitored. In fact, it failed to adequately evaluate the loans, ignored defects that its limited review did uncover, and kept its investors in the dark about the inadequacy of its review procedures and defects in the loans. The loans in Credit Suisse’s mortgage-backed securities included many that had been made to borrowers who were unable to repay the loans, were very likely to default, and ultimately did default in large numbers.

This complaint is the most recent enforcement action by the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, a state-federal task force created by President Obama earlier this year to investigate those responsible for misconduct contributing to the financial crisis through the pooling and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities.