Federal District Court Dismisses Virginia State Law Claims in FHFA RMBS Suit

RMBS FHFA

On November 19, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York held that the FHFA’s state-law claims against a financial institution with regard to the offering of certain residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) could not survive because, unlike federal law, the state law does not apply to the “offering” of securities. Fed. Housing Fin. Agency v. Barclays Bank PLC, No. 11-6190, slip op. (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 19, 2012). The case is one of sixteen in which the FHFA alleges as conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that billions of dollars of RMBS purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were based on offering documents that contained materially false statements and omissions. In prior rulings in this series of cases the court generally has denied the financial institutions’ motions to dismiss, with the lead case currently pending on appeal to the Second Circuit. The instant case, however, presented a unique issue with regard to the FHFA’s state law claims. As the court explained, the federal Securities Act’s private liability provisions apply to any person who “offers or sells” a security and broadly defines “offer,” while the Virginia Securities Act “omits the term ‘offer’ from its otherwise identical private liability provision.” The court determined that through inaction, Virginia “has purposefully sought to ensure that the scope of private liability under its statutes is more limited than that under federal law” and its law does not apply to the offering of securities, only the sale. The court dismissed the FHFA’s state law claims but allowed all other claims to proceed based on the reasoning presented in prior decisions.