Goldman Sachs Consents to Pay $270 Million to Resolve RMBS Claims

Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay approximately $270 million to resolve claims that it sold billions of dollars worth of faulty residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) to investors, according to multiple media reports.

Pension funds led by NECA-IBEW Health & Welfare Fund of Illinois claim that Goldman misled them as to the quality of the loans underlying the RMBS before the 2008 financial crisis, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Goldman Sachs spokesman Michael DuVally declined to comment when reached by email by MReport.

This is not the first time Goldman Sachs has faced a lawsuit over the quality of the RMBS it has sold. In August 2014, Goldman agreed to pay $3.15 billion to settle a lawsuit filed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) alleging that Goldman sold toxic RMBS to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for which FHFA is the conservator.

In May, Goldman was ordered by an arbitrator to pay $100 million to National Australia Bank for a conflict of interest regarding MBS sales. Also in May, the New York Appeals Court reinstated a $120 million fraud claim first brought against Goldman Sachs by ACA Financial Guaranty Corp. in early 2013 regarding the sale of a pool of subprime mortgages.

MBS-related suits perpetrated by investors against financial institutions over pre-crisis RMBS sales are expected to begin winding down now that the six-year statute of limitations is up. Last month, the New York Court of Appeals ruled in the in the case of Ace Securities v. DB Structured Products that the clock on the six-year statute of limitations for investors' claims of breach of contract with regards to RMBS begins ticking on the date the contract for the securities was executed rather than at the time that the trustees fail to repurchase the underlying mortgages.