WMILT sues to prevent golden-parachute payments - 103 page filing in Federal District Court for Western Washington
NOTE: El Juez comments at the end of this post...
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SEATTLE (CN) - After Washington Mutual became the biggest bank failure in U.S. history, 92 of its officers and executives tried to profit from the collapse through illegal golden-parachute payments, the receiver claims in court. The WMI Liquidating Trust sued the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and the 92 former bank officers in Federal Court.
(More in link: http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/09/25/61458.htm )
The actual court filing (100+ pages) from PACER is here: (Thanks to Florin)
http://reorgwmi.com/documents/13-01706/13-01706-00001.pdf
Commentary by El Juez: (reposted with permission)
From the Complaint, page 5:
"3. WMILT also seeks a declaration regarding 12 C.F.R. § 163.39 (formerly 12 C.F.R. § 563.39) (the “Automatic Termination Regulation,” and together with the Golden Parachute Regulations, the “Federal Regulations”), which regulation requires that an employment contract between a savings association, such as WMB, and its officers and other employees must provide that, “[ i]f the savings association is in default,2 all obligations under the contract shall terminate as of the date of default.” 12 C.F.R. § 163.39(b)(4) (emphasis added). Indeed, if the relevant contract does not contain such an automatic termination clause, one will be deemed incorporated and read into the agreement. See Williams v. FDIC, No. 09-504 (RAJ) (W.D. Wash. Aug. 30, 2011) (a copy of which is annexed hereto as Exhibit C). In fact, in Williams, the FDIC obtained a judgment from this Court declaring that certain of the same contracts and plans involving certain of the Individual Defendants here are unenforceable as a result of the Automatic Termination Regulation. See id. This decision was affirmed on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. See Williams v. FDIC, 492 Fed. App’x 796 (9th Cir. 2012). In plain disregard of this Court’s prior determination that certain of the contracts and plans are unenforceable under the Automatic Termination Regulation, several of the Individual Defendants who brought suit against the FDIC are now seeking to enforce those same contracts and plans against WMILT."
El Juez Writes:
So, when the law allows WMILT to file in one of several jurisdictions, what better court to file in than one where both the trial court (Federal District Court for Western Washington) and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal have already ruled (in the Williams case) in your favor on most of the the exact same issues? Likely to speed up the process and make a favorable result more likely. Plus, the vast majority of the claimants live in that judicial district or have previously initiated litigation there (in the Williams case), so "personal jurisdiction" over them is already established.
