Los Angeles dropped a mortgage lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase (JPM) that accused the mega bank of discriminatory mortgage lending, ending one of the city's four lawsuits accusing major banks of driving up foreclosures among minority borrowers. Per Reuters:
Disclosed in a filing on Tuesday in a California federal court, the agreement ends a lawsuit attempting to hold the bank liable for lost property tax revenues caused by falling home values and the cost of repairing blight in minority neighborhoods hit by foreclosures.
A hangover from the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the lawsuit and others like it were brought by a handful of local governments claiming damages for economic destruction wrought nationwide by foreclosures, lost taxes and neighborhood blight. The legal actions have brought only mixed results as banks strongly contested claims that they discriminated.
According to the article, Los Angeles is pursuing similar complaints against Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC) and Citigroup (C).
