From msnbc.com:
Bank of America has been ordered to pay a former employee $930,000 for violating federal whistleblower protection laws.
The Labor Department also ordered the bank to reinstate the worker.
The Los Angeles-area employee led internal investigations that revealed widespread and pervasive wire, mail and bank fraud involving Countrywide employees, according to a Labor Department statement Wednesday.
The payment will cover back wages, interest, compensatory damages and attorney fees.
“It’s clear from our investigation that Bank of America used illegal retaliatory tactics against this employee,” said David Michaels, assistant secretary of the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “This employee showed great courage reporting potential fraud and standing up for the rights of other employees to do the same.”
The employee said those who attempted to report fraud to Countrywide’s Employee Relations Department suffered persistent retaliation.
Bank of America said it plans to challenge the order. The Charlotte, N.C. bank said it dismissed the employee because of issues related to management style rather than the complaints. The bank said it takes allegations of fraud seriously and that the employees allegations were investigated and appropriate actions were taken.
Bank of America’s ill-fated acquisition of Countrywide has led to heavy financial losses, lawsuits and regulatory probes. The bank’s stock lost 48 percent this year, largely because of problems related to poorly-written mortgages at Countrywide. In the first half of the year the bank paid out $12.7 billion to settle claims from investors that it sold them securities backed by faulty mortgages.
The employee, who worked for Countrywide Financial Corp., was fired shortly after the mortgage lender was bought by Bank of America Corp. in 2008.
I’m pretty sure Bank of America is the most evil corporation in business today.
I thought it was Goldman Sachs.
You are both right – they are both controlled by the same secret society.
I love BoA’s statement that it takes allegations of fraud seriously and that employees allegations were investigated and “appropriate action” taken. I’m sure the “appropriate action” (in their mind) was firing.
Would that whistleblower really want to be re-employed by the bank? It would remind me of an episode of Seinfeld where George sits in an empty office all day…
Let’s not be too hasty here. Bank of America bought both Merrill Lynch and Countrywide Mortgage when both companies were close to bankruptcy with the hope of turning them around. BofA’s CEO was described as just plain stupid in Michael Lewis’ book _The Big Short_. So you could say BofA was naive and stupid in believing (as their many, many, previous financial acquisitions were) just poorly run companies, not warehouses of fraudulent mortgages. Note nobody hears about Barclays who bought Lehman Brothers. The difference is Barclays bought Lehman out of bankruptcy, so there are no deep pockets to sue. (Actually Barclays still get sued, but the plaintiffs lose.)
Mr Tanner, BofA bought countrywide primarily for its servicing operation and that was pure idiocy. The late Doris Dungey ,”TANTA” , made some pithy observations about this on the “Calculated Risk” blog. In brief the CW loan servicing platform was highly automated and its model was designed to handle a very low volume of defaults. Oops. BofA is still not doing a good job of handling the delinquent loans it has on its books. Are you actually claiming no one at BofA could foresee what happened?