FDIC to pay MAXXAM.FDIC FDICSee: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation FDIC See Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). TO PAY MAXXAM. MAXXAM Inc., Houston, Texas, USA announced that Judge Lynn N. Hughes, United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas is the Federal district court with jurisdiction over the southern part of Texas and is a part of the Fifth Circuit. The court's headquarters is in Houston, Texas and has six additional offices in the district. , has ordered that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), an independent U.S. federal executive agency designed to promote public confidence in banks and to provide insurance coverage for bank deposits up to $100,000. (FDIC) pay MAXXAM over US$ 72 million dollars in sanctions as measured by legal and other expenses incurred during its 10-year legal battle against the regulatory agency. MAXXAM's timber subsidiary, Pacific Lumber, owns about 205,000 acres of California timberlands. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The judgment represents the largest sanction against the Federal government and incorporates MAXXAM's requests that MAXXAM be reimbursed its reasonable costs and attorney's fees. MAXXAM filed a motion to sanction the FDIC for filing a law-suit that the FDIC's own legal division's internal analysis concluded had "at least a 70%" chance of failing on pretrial motions and, if it survived, the chances of prevailing on the merits on the merits adj. referring to a judgment, decision or ruling of a court based upon the facts presented in evidence and the law applied to that evidence. A judge decides a case "on the merits" when he/she bases the decision on the fundamental issues and considers were "marginal at best." The FDIC's standards call for at least a 50% chance of success before initiating legal action. Prior to the FDIC lawsuit, the FDIC had paid off millions of dollars to the Office of Thrift Supervision The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) was established as a bureau of the Treasury Department in August 1989 as part of a major Reorganization Plan of the thrift regulatory structure mandated by the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA) (12 U.S.C.A. (OTS See Office of Thrift Supervision. ) to initiate administrative action against MAXXAM, Texas-based businessman Charles Hurwitz (who controls 77% of MAXXAM), and others. The litigation that began 1995 sought US$ 821 million in restitution and civil money penalties. It ended when the OTS settled with MAXXAM and Hurwitz in October 2002 for $206,000; the respondents made no admission of wrongdoing. ABOUT THE AUTHOR The WorldWatch section in Solutions! magazine is written by Sara M. Scharpf, a writer based in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, USA. Contact her by email at sara@sgrpi.com. |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion