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I agree, a favorable ruling will be a well deserved historical event!
I hear ya! I had to diversify a little bit just to pay for my Pacer bill! I put some $$$ in a nice little stock that is at least covering that bill while we wait it out. :)
AIG going up right now is because the company itself is looking good right now. If there is a favorable ruling in the Greenberg case, they predict AIG would take a 3.5% hit. That doesn't seem like a big deal. I myself don't follow AIG's up and down pps movement to predict Greenberg outcome. I only look at the pps going up as good because Fairholme's portfolio is about half AIG and they're paying legal costs for the Sweeney case which we all seem to be glued to. :) I've never been convinced that there will be a blatant sign in AIG's stock that will give us an advance warning of Wheeler's decision. I do watch it all though, because I don't want to miss what seems to be our one bit of exciting news right now! :)
AIG Says Defining Risk of Greenberg Suit Is ‘Compound Problem’
by Sonali Basak
June 3, 2015 — 1:51 PM MDT
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American International Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Peter Hancock said that it’s difficult to quantify the financial risk to the company from former CEO Maurice “Hank” Greenberg’s suit over the insurer’s bailout.
“As I see it, it’s a compound problem,” Hancock said Wednesday in a conference hosted by Deutsche Bank AG. Greenberg’s Starr International Co. has sued the U.S., contending that the 2008 government rescue of AIG cheated shareholders out of at least $25 billion, and the lawsuit’s verdict is expected in coming weeks.
The first variable is whether U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thomas Wheeler rules in Starr’s favor. Then, Hancock said, it depends on the size of damages and whether the government seeks to recover the funds from AIG. The New York-based insurer has said it would defend itself against the government in such a situation.
“As we think about those probabilities together, we come up with an assessment of whether this is a cause for concern,” Hancock said. “Whichever way, it’s not going to be resolved for many years. So, it’s not an immediate liquidity event.”
Credit Suisse Group AG estimates that AIG could fall as much as 3.5 percent if Wheeler rules in Greenberg’s favor. AIG jumped 2.4 percent to $61.12 at 3:43 p.m. in New York trading.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-03/aig-says-defining-risk-of-greenberg-suit-is-compound-problem-?cmpid=yhoo
For investors set up outside US, just interested in how they're structuring it all.
FNMA 386,948 shares @ $2.54 [15:27:43]
Just AIG. I only look at the rise in AIG as being good as far as it makes up about half of Fairholme's holdings. They're paying legal fees in Sweeney court. At this point, legal fees are high, glad AIG is doing well for them!
Najarian covering AIG on cnbc, bullish!
Daily Treasury Guidance for Wednesday, June 3, 2015
6/3/2015
?In the afternoon, Secretary Lew will meet with President Obama at the White House. This meeting is closed
Wednesday, June 3
9:00 AM EDT
Assistant Secretary for Management Brodi Fontenot
Testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on “Ensuring Agency Compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)”
Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C.?
This hearing is open press.
We really need a public voice out there, stop the theft!!! Stop stealing 100% net profits from 2 privately held, publicly traded, trillion dollar US companies. This article points out that amongst the US's richest self-made women, 40% built their fortunes in California. So, let's start with California! Kathy Ireland's company alone reels in over $2 billion a year. Most of these women are not afraid to speak out either. We should be poking around and see who may be on our side! :) The rest of the public needs to know what is going on!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/katiasavchuk/2015/05/28/california-dreaming-richest-self-made-women-in-the-golden-state/
PLAINTIFFS’ SUR-REBUTTAL IN RESPONSE TO DEFENDANT’S JUNE 1 SUR-REPLY
Plaintiffs Fairholme Funds, Inc., et al. (“Plaintiffs” or “Fairholme”) respectfully submit this short sur-rebuttal, in response to the Government’s recent sur-reply1 concerning Fairholme’s pending motion to remove the “Protected Information” designation from certain of the Govern- ment’s so-called “provisional” privilege logs. The ostensible reason for the filing of the Govern- ment’s sur-reply was to provide a “clarification” of statements it made, in its recent opposition2 to Fairholme’s motion, regarding its intent to produce public “version[s]” of its “final” privilege logs. The clarification provided by the Government is that it now intends to produce public ver- sions of its “final” logs with no “large-scale redactions or redacted columns.” Sur-Reply at 1.
The Government’s “clarification” of its position, as discussed below, is in fact a welcome change in its position rather than a true clarification, and for that reason Fairholme did not plan
1 See Defendant’s Sur-Reply in Response to Plaintiffs’ Motion to Remove the “Protected Information” Designation from Defendant’s Provisional Privilege Logs at 1 (June 1, 2015) (Doc. 157-1) (“Sur-Reply”).
2 See Defendant’s Response to Plaintiffs’ Motion to Remove the “Protected Information” Designation from Defendant’s Provisional Privilege Logs at 1, 3, 8 (May 18, 2015) (Doc. 154) (“Response” or “Resp.”).
to oppose the Government’s motion for leave to submit its sur-reply. Nonetheless, because the Government’s sur-reply contains a false accusation that counsel for Fairholme has violated this Court’s Protective Order, and because the Government made a number of other representations in the sur-reply that, if not corrected, will mislead the Court, Fairholme is compelled to file this short sur-rebuttal in order to defend itself against the Government’s accusations and to correct the record.
1. The Government claims that the statement, in a footnote in our reply brief, that “[t]o date, the Government has asserted privilege with respect to thousands of documents,”3 con- stitutes “a breach of the Court’s protective order.” Sur-Reply at 2 n.1. The Government claims that this simple statement of fact constitutes Protected Information within the meaning of the Protective Order and that we, therefore, violated that order by including the statement in a reply brief that was not filed under seal. The notion that this statement constitutes “confidential” infor- mation within the meaning of the Protective Order is, as a matter of law, ludicrous on its face.4 But the Government’s claim is also baseless as a matter of fact, for the information at issue is al- ready in the public domain. Not only has the fact that “the Government has asserted privilege with respect to thousands of documents” been publicly disclosed multiple times in this litigation, it has been publicly disclosed by the Government.
Thus, in its own publicly-filed opposition to Fairholme’s pending motion, the Govern- ment specifically acknowledged that “[a]s Fairholme notes, the Government has provisionally
3 Plaintiffs’ Reply in Support of their Motion to Remove the “Protected Information” Designation from Defendant’s March 20 Privilege Log at 4 n.3 (May 27, 2015) (Doc. 155) (“Re- ply”).
4 As we discuss at length in our motion papers, this Court specifically rejected the Gov- ernment’s definition of “confidential” as any information not already in the public domain, and it has made clear that for information to be considered confidential, its public release must be likely to cause some type of legally cognizable harm. See, e.g., Reply at 7–10.
identified thousands of documents as potentially privileged.” Resp. at 11 (emphasis added). And the Government went on to contend, in that same public filing, that
[t]o demand that the Government individually redact thousands of [privilege log] entries containing various personal information and descriptions of subject matter from these provisional logs would greatly hinder the Government’s ability to com- plete its final privilege log in a timely manner, and would frustrate the Court’s and the parties’ interests in timely completing jurisdictional discovery.
Id. at 11–12 (emphasis added). Moreover, in the publicly-filed version of Fairholme’s opening brief, Fairholme referred, without objection by the Government, to the Government’s thousands of privilege assertions. On page 13 of that brief, for example, Fairholme noted the Government’s effort to “invoke various privileges to shield thousands of relevant documents from scrutiny.” Plaintiffs’ Public, Redacted Motion to Remove the “Protected Information” Designation from Defendant’s March 20 Privilege Log at 13 (May 12, 2015) (Doc. 152) (emphasis added). And in recounting the relevant facts relating to the Government’s production of three (to that point) pro- tected privilege logs, we identified the approximate number of documents that were listed in each of those logs; added together, the figures discussed in the brief came out to more than 2,100 documents – i.e., thousands of documents. Id. at 5, 7. Importantly, before we filed the public version of our opening brief, we provided it to counsel for the Government, as contemplated by the Protective Order.5 See, e.g., Protective Order ¶ 11. The Government did not object to any of these references to its assertion of privilege over “thousands” of documents.6 In short, the Gov- ernment’s accusation is utterly baseless, it is offensive, and it should be rebuked.
5 See E-mail from Vincent Colatriano to Gregg Schwind (Apr. 24, 2015) (copy attached hereto as Exhibit 1).
6 In addition to the numerous references in the parties’ public briefs to the Government’s “thousands” of privilege assertions, the parties had previously discussed, during public status conferences, the likelihood that the Government would assert privilege over thousands of docu- ments. See, e.g., Transcript of Jan. 28, 2015 Status Conference at 11; Transcript of Mar. 31, 2015 Status Conference at 15. See also Transcript of Feb. 28, 2015 Status Conference at 11, 15.
2. Other statements in the sur-reply, while not nearly as serious as the Government’s accusation that we have violated the Protective Order, are also distressing. In particular, the Government recounts a version of the events leading up to the filing of its “clarification” in its sur-reply that misleadingly omits material facts. The Government notes, for example, that it has “already provided plaintiffs a final, unprotected FHFA privilege log with no redactions at all,” and it objects that, despite the production of the FHFA log and the Government’s “clarification,” “Fairholme has not agreed to withdraw its motion.” Sur-Reply at 2.
But the Government does not include the following points:
? The Government first told Fairholme that its final privilege logs would not in- clude extensive redactions on the afternoon of Friday, May 29. Prior to that time, in its response to Fairholme’s motion, the Government made quite clear that it considered such information as “the names of the individuals . . . who sent and re- ceived the documents listed on the log, the employees’ email addresses, and the subjects of the communications” to be confidential information. Resp. at 5 n.2. See also id. at 11 (arguing that it should not be required to redact confidential in- formation such as “various personal information and descriptions of subject mat- ter” from the provisional logs). The Government’s May 29 statement that it in- tended to produce largely unredacted public versions of its final privilege logs is thus materially inconsistent with its prior arguments regarding the supposedly confidential information contained within its earlier privilege logs.
? In any event, in their discussions on the afternoon of May 29, counsel to Fair- holme and to the Government agreed that they would both give the issue further thought over the weekend and would speak again early this week.
? However, rather than continue discussions as the Government had agreed to do, the Government, on the next business day (Monday, June 1), filed its motion for leave to file the Sur-Reply. It did so without providing any prior notice to Fair- holme.
? It is true that the Government produced to Fairholme its “final” FHFA privilege log. It did so, however, without any prior notice at 3:38 p.m. on June 1. Less than 20 minutes later, at 3:56, it filed its motion for leave to file the Sur-Reply, attaching the proposed sur-reply in which it, among other things, criticized Fair- holme for not withdrawing its motion in light of the final FHFA privilege log it had just received minutes earlier.
? The Government does not note in its Sur-reply that although it had previously rep- 4
resented, on multiple occasions, that it expected to produce all of its final privi- lege logs by the end of May, it informed Fairholme on May 28 that it now ex- pected to complete its final privilege log (presumably one relating to its Treasury document productions) no earlier than the end of June.
These recent events confirm that our original motion to remove the Protected Infor- mation designation from the Government’s earlier privilege logs was well-founded. As we have argued, the fact that the Government, quite consciously and intentionally, declined to designate its first three privilege logs as protected underscores that none of the logs it later produced – which contain the exact same types of information – contained Protected Information. See, e.g., Reply at 11–12. The Government has now made clear that it also does not consider the “final” versions of these logs – which, again, contain the exact same types of information – to contain confidential information either. While we welcome the Government’s commitment to eventually produce public versions of its final privilege logs that will not include “wholesale” redactions, doing so will not somehow cure the Government’s improper and unjustified designation of nu- merous earlier logs as protected.
Date: June 2, 2015
Of counsel:
Vincent J. Colatriano
David H. Thompson
Peter A. Patterson
Brian W. Barnes
COOPER & KIRK, PLLC
1523 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 220-9600
(202) 220-9601 (fax)
Respectfully submitted,
s/ Charles J. Cooper
Charles J. Cooper
Counsel of Record
COOPER & KIRK, PLLC
1523 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 220-9600
(202) 220-9601 (fax) ccooper@cooperkirk.com
PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE SUR-REBUTTAL
Plaintiffs Fairholme Funds, Inc., et al. (“Plaintiffs” or “Fairholme”) respectfully request leave to file the attached sur-rebuttal in response to the Government’s recent sur-reply1 concern- ing Fairholme’s pending motion to remove the “Protected Information” designation from certain of the Government’s so-called “provisional” privilege logs. The Court granted the Govern- ment’s motion for leave to file its sur-reply earlier today. Fairholme did not oppose the Govern- ment’s motion for leave to file the sur-reply, because the sur-reply included a welcome “clarifi- cation” of the Government’s position regarding the nature of the final privilege logs that it plans to produce.
But the sur-reply also includes an accusation by the Government that counsel for Fair- holme violated this Court’s Protective Order when it filed its May 27 reply in support of its pending motion. That is a very serious accusation, and it is also utterly baseless. Given the seri- ousness of this false accusation, Fairholme requests an opportunity to respond in order to defend
1 See Defendant’s Sur-Reply in Response to Plaintiffs’ Motion to Remove the “Protected Information” Designation from Defendant’s Provisional Privilege Logs (June 1, 2015) (Doc. 157-1) (“Sur-Reply”).
1
itself. In addition, because the Government made a number of other representations in the sur- reply that, if not corrected, will mislead the Court regarding the events that led up to the filing of the sur-reply, Fairholme also requests an opportunity to correct the record on these points as well. While Fairholme has no desire to unnecessarily prolong the briefing on its pending motion, good cause exists for the filing of the attached sur-rebuttal, as Fairholme obviously had no prior opportunity to respond to the accusations and other representations made by the Government in its sur-reply.
For the foregoing reasons, Fairholme respectfully requests leave to file the attached sur- rebuttal.
Date: June 2, 2015
Of counsel:
Vincent J. Colatriano
David H. Thompson
Peter A. Patterson
Brian W. Barnes
COOPER & KIRK, PLLC
1523 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 220-9600
(202) 220-9601 (fax)
Respectfully submitted,
s/ Charles J. Cooper
Charles J. Cooper
Counsel of Record
COOPER & KIRK, PLLC
1523 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036
06/02/2015 MOTION for Leave to File Sur-Rebuttal , filed by All Plaintiffs.Response due by 6/19/2015. (Attachments: # 1 Sur-Rebuttal)(Cooper, Charles)
Hedgies like AIG right now. Hopefully, they follow to Fannie, Freddie as soon as we get the gov off our backs!
Hi Obi, post from Dax1
Obit, I respect your thoughts regarding legal issues on this blog. Can you tell us what sur peal is. It appears defendant has asked to reject the plaintiffs request for full disclosure. And all this is sayin is the judge says okay you can surpeal. Now the other day, defendants submitted what I presume is their actual sur peal. Now we are waiting for judges ruling. Am I close?
I agree! Crazy stuff!
ORDER On April 23, 2015, plaintiffs in the above-captioned filed a motion to remove the “Protected Information” designation from defendant’s March 20, 2015 provisional privilege log. Plaintiffs’ motion is now fully briefed. Defendant has filed a motion for leave to file a sur-response, stating that it is necessary in order to clarify its position regarding production of the final privilege logs during jurisdictional discovery. Defendant has attached its sur-response to the motion. For good cause shown, defendant’s motion is GRANTED, and the sur-response is deemed FILED. IT IS SO ORDERED. s/ Margaret M. Sweeney MARGARET M. SWEENEY Judge
I agree!!
That's a pretty good translation!
Here's the actual sur-reply also. The previous post was the reason for the gov's slurpee, I mean sur-reply. :)
DEFENDANT’S SUR-REPLY IN RESPONSE TO PLAINTIFFS’
MOTION TO REMOVE THE “PROTECTED INFORMATION” DESIGNATION FROM DEFENDANT’S PROVISIONAL PRIVILEGE LOGS
Defendant, the United States, respectfully files this sur-reply in support of its response to the motion by Fairholme Funds, Inc., et al. (Fairholme) challenging the designation of the Government’s provisional privilege logs as “Protected Information.” Although we disagree with virtually all of the assertions in Fairholme’s reply, we respond to only two here.
We demonstrated in our response that Fairholme’s motion addressing the provisional privilege logs was largely a waste of the Court’s time because the United States intended to produce final privilege logs that would not be designated “Protected Information.” Def. Resp. at 1, 3. In its reply, Fairholme dismisses our argument, claiming that final, non-protected privilege logs might be inadequate because these logs might have large-scale redactions. Pls. Reply at 2. Fairholme further claims that these potential redactions would be part of what it calls a Government “strategy” to prevent disclosure of information related to the subject of Fairholme’s suit: the Third Amendment to funding agreements between the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). Id.
Given the statements in Fairholme’s reply, we clarify here that we intend to provide public, non-protected, final privilege logs, with no large-scale redactions or redacted columns.
In fact, we have already provided plaintiffs a final, unprotected FHFA privilege log with no redactions at all. Although we have communicated this information and provided this log to Fairholme, Fairholme has not agreed to withdraw its motion.
We also feel compelled to respond to Fairholme’s accusation of a broad Government “strategy” to avoid disclosure of information related to the Third Amendment. Fairholme’s accusation that the Government is preventing disclosure of information is simply wrong.1 At this time, the Government has produced over 600,000 pages of Treasury and FHFA documents in response to Fairholme’s document requests. Fairholme has also taken exhaustive depositions of key FHFA officials related to the Third Amendment, and has noticed the depositions of present and former Treasury officials.
For these reasons, and the reasons explained in our response to Fairholme’s motion, the United States respectfully requests that the Court deny Fairholme’s motion.
Respectfully submitted,
BENJAMIN C. MIZER
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General
s/ Robert E. Kirschman, Jr. ROBERT E. KIRSCHMAN, JR. Director
1
Fairholme’s reference to the number of documents on our protected logs, Pls. Reply at 4 n.3, is a breach of the Court’s protective order; the only way that Fairholme could make the statement is because it has access to our protected logs. Beyond this, Fairholme’s statement that we have withdrawn privilege over only a small number of documents is inaccurate.
06/01/2015 MOTION for Leave to File Sur-Reply , filed by USA.Response due by 6/18/2015. (Attachments: # 1 Sur-Reply)(Schwind, Gregg)
DEFENDANT’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE SUR-REPLY
Defendant, the United States, respectfully requests leave to file the attached sur-reply to plaintiffs’ May 27, 2015 reply in support of their motion challenging the designation of the Government’s provisional privilege logs as “Protected Information.” A sur-reply is necessary to clarify the Government’s position that it will provide plaintiffs a public, non-protected version of the final privilege logs, with no redacted columns, upon completion of the final logs. In fact, we have already done so with respect to the final privilege log from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
This clarification is necessary given plaintiffs’ speculation that the Government’s final privilege logs might contain wholesale redactions or redacted columns. Pls. Reply at 2. The clarification is also necessary to respond to plaintiffs’ accusation that such redactions are part of a broad “strategy” to prevent public disclosure of information relating to the allegations in plaintiffs’ complaint. Id.
A request to file a sur-reply is normally granted “when a party is ‘unable to contest matters presented to the court for the first time’ in the last scheduled pleading.” Ben-Kotel v. Howard Univ., 319 F.3d 532, 536 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (quoting Lewis v. Rumsfeld, 154 F. Supp. 2d
56, 61 (D.D.C. 2001)); accord United States v. Diabetes Treatment Centers of America, Inc., 238 F. Supp. 2d 270, 276-77 (D.D.C. 2002).
For these reasons, the United States respectfully requests that the attached sur-reply be filed to permit clarification of our position with respect to the final privilege logs.
Respectfully submitted,
BENJAMIN C. MIZER
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General
Yes, there haven't been any updates there since closing arguments April 22nd. Not much exciting news lately, anywhere! :)
JOINT STATUS REPORT REGARDING JUNE 3 STATUS CONFERENCE In accordance with this Court’s Order of August 13, 2014 (Doc. 85), the parties hereby notify the Court that they do not believe it is necessary to hold the status conference currently scheduled for June 3.
Continuing to do well!
If they are logical, reasonable cases filed. It seems like money might flow in to support their cause....
From every state, good idea!
Sims just tweeted this:
Iowa Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Shareholders File Lawsuit Against Federal Housing Finance Agency and the U.S. Treasury
DES MOINES, IA— Today, Iowa shareholders filed a lawsuit against the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and the U.S. Treasury. The complaint challenges the legality of the government’s use of the profits of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under what is known as the Third Amendment Sweep:
According to the complaint:
“Plaintiffs bring this action to put a stop to the federal government’s naked and unauthorized expropriation of their property rights…Treasury’s violation of HERA is straightforward: the Net Worth Sweep, by changing the fundamental economic characteristics of Treasury’s investment, created a new security, and HERA forbade Treasury from acquiring Fannie and Freddie stock in 2012. This Court must set aside the Net Worth Sweep and restore to Fannie’s and Freddie’s private shareholders the property rights the federal government has unlawfully expropriated for itself.
Referring to the Sweep, plaintiff Tom Saxton of Cedar Rapids, said, “I’ve invested a fair amount of money in Freddie Mac. What the government has done is wrong, and I’m filing this lawsuit to protect my property.”
This is the first suit by individual shareholders in Iowa and the first suit filed since Treasury documents leaked earlier this year raised serious questions about whether judges lacked relevant information before ruling in similar cases related to the Third Amendment Sweep.
A copy of the lawsuit is available upon request.
It's 16 pages. Here's the last 2 pages just to give an idea. It's the plaintiff's response filed yesterday.
The Government’s perfunctory and cavalier dismissal of any notion that Plaintiffs suffer prejudice from being foreclosed from sharing Protected Information with their clients, Resp. at 8, is particularly striking. Fairholme, of course, is the party who has been directly affected by the Government actions at issue in this case, actions that it contends had the effect of expropriating its vested property interests. Fairholme therefore has an undeniable interest in the conduct of this action, including the Government’s efforts to withhold thousands of documents from scrutiny and to otherwise shroud its actions in secrecy. To be sure, Fairholme is represented by counsel, and, to be sure, it is often necessary in litigation for clients to be barred from having access to truly confidential information produced in discovery. But it is ludicrous for the Government to suggest that when relevant information that is not confidential is nevertheless designated as pro- tected, a client – the injured party – suffers no prejudice at all when it is not allowed to see that information and is thereby blinded to information relevant to its own action to protect its own property rights.
The Government’s suggestion is even more preposterous in the circumstances here, since Fairholme’s officials include sophisticated analysts and businessmen who would almost certainly be able to assist counsel in assessing the Government’s thousands of privilege assertions (includ- ing but not limited to, assisting in determining, from document descriptions and the identification of authors and recipients, which improperly withheld documents may be worth fighting about). And it is no answer to suggest that because Fairholme can hire and pay expensive experts to as- sist counsel, no prejudice can be shown. Resp. at 7. Unnecessarily increasing Fairholme’s liti- gation expenses, which is what would result if Fairholme were forced to ask paid experts to help
assess information that has been improperly designated as protected, does not relieve the preju- dice to Fairholme; it compounds such prejudice.9
CONCLUSION
For the reasons discussed above and in our initial brief, there is no question that the Gov- ernment’s designation of its March 20 Log and subsequent logs as Protected Information was im- proper. The motion, therefore, should be granted.
Date: May 27, 2015
Respectfully submitted,
Of counsel:
Vincent J. Colatriano
David H. Thompson
Peter A. Patterson
Brian W. Barnes
COOPER & KIRK, PLLC
1523 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 220-9600
(202) 220-9601 (fax)
s/ Charles J. Cooper
Charles J. Cooper
Counsel of Record
COOPER & KIRK, PLLC
1523 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 220-9600
(202) 220-9601 (fax) ccooper@cooperkirk.com
9 We must comment briefly on the Government’s suggestion that the fact that Fairholme published a letter containing “verbatim excerpts” from the Government’s earlier non-designated privilege logs was somehow “improper.” Resp. at 9. The Government points to no law, rule, or- der, or other authority that foreclosed Fairholme from disclosing and commenting upon materials that had not been designated as protected in communications intended to keep Fairholme’s 170,000 mutual fund shareholders apprised of litigation that directly affects their interests. Nor does the Government otherwise explain how the disclosure of “verbatim excerpts” from the logs was inappropriate or prejudicial. The Government no doubt was not pleased to see its actions in this litigation disclosed to and discussed in the public, but it is the Government’s continuing at- tempts to shroud in secrecy information that does not qualify for such protection under this Court’s order that is improper.
05/27/2015 REPLY to Response to Motion re 148 MOTION to Remove the "Protected Information" Designation from Defendant's March 20 Privilege Log , f
"this legislation would impose a Wall Street speculation fee on Wall Street investment houses and hedge funds,” Sanders said. “My legislation would impose a Wall Street speculation fee of 0.5 percent on stock trades (that’s 50 cents for every $100 worth of stock), a 0.1 percent fee on bonds, and a 0.005 percent fee on derivatives. It has been estimated that this legislation would raise up to $300 billion a year.”
http://m.townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldoherty/2015/05/19/bernie-sanders-latest-bill-free-college-for-all-n2001128
At exactly 2.60 again!
FNMA 250,000 shares @ $2.60 [11:22:52]
You're right. It doesn't go well with the morning coffee these days. :)
If you want to listen to Lew in London :)
http://www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/videoAndAudio/LSELive.aspx
Nearly 80 Percent of Top 100 U.S. Housing Markets Improving
Strong Buyer Demand Driving Top Performing Markets
Marketwired Freddie Mac
20 minutes ago
MCLEAN, VA--(Marketwired - May 27, 2015) - Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC) today released its updated Multi-Indicator Market Index® (MiMi®) showing the U.S. housing market continuing to stabilize with the most improving metro markets seeing stronger demand for home sales this spring homebuying season. Despite strong house price appreciation, low mortgage rates are keeping payment-to-incomes affordable for the typical family in most markets.
News Facts:
The national MiMi value stands at 75.4, indicating a weak housing market overall but showing an improvement (+0.69%) from February to March and a three-month improvement of (+1.24%). On a year-over-year basis, the national MiMi value has improved (+3.11%). The nation's all-time MiMi high of 121.7 was April 2006; its low was 57.4 in October 2010, when the housing market was at its weakest. Since that time, the national MiMi value has made a 31.3 percent rebound.
Seventeen of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia have MiMi values in a stable range, with North Dakota (95.8), the District of Columbia (95.6), Hawaii (90.5), Montana (90), and Wyoming (85.7) ranking in the top five.
Twenty-five of the 100 metro areas have MiMi values in a stable range, with Honolulu (91.8), Fresno (90.5), Austin (88.8), Los Angeles (86.8) and McAllen, TX (86.4) ranking in the top five.
The most improving states month-over-month were Washington (+2.37%), Oregon (+2.26%), Arizona (+1.76%), Tennessee (+1.39%) and Michigan (+1.26%). On a year-over-year basis, the most improving states were Nevada (+9.87%), Oregon (+9.86%), Colorado (9.34%), Florida (+8.23%), and Michigan (+7.60%).
The most improving metro areas month-over-month were Portland (+2.68%), Riverside (+2.22%), San Jose (+2.13%), Nashville (+2.10%) and Baton Rouge (+1.99%). On a year-over-year basis, the most improving metro areas were Stockton (+12.01%), Detroit (+11.63%), Denver (+11.41%), Las Vegas (+10.73%), and Palm Bay, FL (+10.23%).
In March, 36 of the 50 states and 77 of the 100 metros were showing an improving three month trend. The same time last year, 40 states plus the District of Columbia, and 82 of the top 100 metro areas were showing an improving three-month trend.
Quote attributable to Freddie Mac Deputy Chief Economist Len Kiefer:
"The nation's housing markets are getting back on track. Better employment prospects, rising home values and increased purchase activity are all driving improvements in housing markets across the country. In this month's MiMi three more states and seven metro areas moved within range of their benchmark level of activity. However, as we've mentioned before, we're likely to see bouts of affordability shock with mortgage rate swings for the remainder of this year as market participants try to anticipate Fed timing around rising short term interest rates and expectations for global growth wax and wane."
"The West and Southwest areas of the country are showing some of the strongest housing activity, especially markets like Portland, Denver, Dallas, San Jose and Los Angeles. Many markets in the South and Midwest, while improving, are still plagued by high rates of mortgage delinquencies, which are holding back these markets from recovering faster. The exception to this would be the Nashville-area market. It more closely resembles the housing markets in the West, such as those in Utah. These markets are experiencing double-digit annual growth rates in purchase applications and showing some of the strongest homebuying demand in the country."
The 2015 MiMi release calendar is available online.
MiMi monitors and measures the stability of the nation's housing market, as well as the housing markets of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the top 100 metro markets. MiMi combines proprietary Freddie Mac data with current local market data to assess where each single-family housing market is relative to its own long-term stable range by looking at home purchase applications, payment-to-income ratios (changes in home purchasing power based on house prices, mortgage rates and household income), proportion of on-time mortgage payments in each market, and the local employment picture. The four indicators are combined to create a composite MiMi value for each market. Monthly, MiMi uses this data to show, at a glance, where each market stands relative to its own stable range of housing activity. MiMi also indicates how each market is trending, whether it is moving closer to, or further away from, its stable range. A market can fall outside its stable range by being too weak to generate enough demand for a well-balanced housing market or by overheating to an unsustainable level of activity.
For more detail on MiMi see the FAQs. The most current version can be found at FreddieMac.com/mimi.
Freddie Mac was established by Congress in 1970 to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation's residential mortgage markets. Freddie Mac supports communities across the nation by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Today Freddie Mac is making home possible for approximately one in four home borrowers and is one of the largest sources of financing for multifamily housing. Additional information is available at FreddieMac.com, Twitter @FreddieMac and Freddie Mac's blog FreddieMac.com/blog.
FNMA 250,000 shares @ $2.60 [10:02:24]