So this happened.
Sherrod Brown to Daniel Stipano (OCC) - The OCC has a name of a firm whose track record isn’t good, but the OCC will not release that name?
Stipano - Yes. It’s a legal issue for the OCC to do so.
Brown asked Stipano about the revolving door issue of ‘indepencence’ - how separate were the banks or consultants from the government in terms of past and present employment to financial institutions. Stipano replied - “it’s not realistic to expect no prior ties to the institution. “
Brown - Did anybody at OCC have concerns about how cost of IFR were growing?
Stipano - “We were all trying to make it work.” (Didn’t answer the question IMHO)
Elizabeth Warren - If you believed the banks had illegally foreclosed in more cases, would you have settled for more money, correct?
Richard Ashton (Fed) - There were other factors behind the decision.
Warren - It matters how many homeowners were victims of banks in determining settlement amount, was it not? Getting the right amount of cash to the right people. Is that right?
Ashton - We gave up looking for individual injury.
Warren - We discovered (a previous percentage) was a made up number. If you can’t correctly tell how many people were the victims of illegal bank actions, how can you decide what is appropriate for settlement?
Ashton - It was not a perfect agreement.
Warren - Mr Ashton, I understand delay. But it doesn’t mean you pick a number out of the air. It should have been based on illegal activity and number of injured homeowners.
Ashton - It would have meant additional delay.
Warren - I want to know on a bank by bank basis number of illegal foreclosed families. Will OCC give me that information?
Stipano - (basically, avoids just saying ‘no.’)
Warren - Unless someone throws a rock through a window you won’t release it?
Stipano - No.
Warren - If an illegally foreclosed family wants to sue a bank, would it be helpful for the family to have information in your files about how the bank illegally foreclosed upon them?
Ashton - Yes.
Warren - Do you plan to give those families the information in your possession about how the banks illegally foreclosed against them?
Ashton - (basically not a ‘yes.’)
Warren - So you’ve made decision to protect the banks, but not the families that have been foreclosed against?
Ashton - Yes.
Warren - You let the banks violate the law and you don’t know what you’ll be telling the homeowners? WIthout transparency, we can’t have any confidence in your oversight or that the markets are functioning properly at all.