The city of Los Angeles accused JPMorgan Chase (JPM) of pushing minority borrowers into mortgages they could not afford, creating a wave of foreclosures that impacted property values and city offers, an article in the LA Times said.
In a lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court, the Los Angeles city attorney alleged the nation's largest bank “has engaged in a continuous pattern and practice of mortgage discrimination in Los Angeles since at least 2004 by imposing different terms or conditions on a discriminatory and legally prohibited basis."
The lawsuit is the latest in a city attempt to collect unspecified damages based on hits to city revenue from alleged discriminatory lending. That lending, the city alleged, caused a foreclosure flood that reduced property tax revenue, as well as increased costs for city services on those properties.
This follows a report Thursday saying that the city of Providence plans to file a suit against Santander Bank for the same reason.
