A New York court ruled yesterday that a bond insurer claiming Bank of America’s Countrywide unit fraudulently induced it to insure $21 billion of mortgage-backed securities can use statistical sampling to prove its case.
Judge Eileen Bransten granted a motion to allow the insurer, MBIA, to use statistical sampling, turning down the objections by Bank of America.
Bank of America had told investors that it intended to fight repurchase requests—also known as put-backs—on a “loan-by-loan basis.” That process would have required MBIA and others seeking to force Bank of America to buy back loans it pooled into mortgage securities to proceed one loan at a time, a costly and time-consuming process.