This story appeared in Bank Digest.
The
Quarterly Report to Congress filed by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program noted that the Home Affordable Modification Program continues to have difficulty achieving its goal of keeping people in their homes through permanent reductions of mortgage payments to affordable levels. “HAMP has not put an appreciable dent in foreclosure filings,” the report said, noting that more modifications have failed than have succeeded. The report also said that “Treasury's refusal to provide meaningful goals for this important program is a fundamental failure of transparency and accountability .
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This story appeared in Bank Digest.
Following a request by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce. Science, and Transportation, and Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program has
issued a report discussing the decisions of General Motors and Chrysler to reduce their dealership networks and the pace at which the automakers terminated the dealerships. The report addressed: the role of the Treasury’s Auto Team, which has the responsibility, among other things, of evaluating the companies’ restructuring plans and negotiating the terms of any further assistance, in the decision to reduce dealership networks; the extent to which GM and Chrysler developed and documented processes for deciding which dealerships to terminate and which to retain; and to what extent the dealership reductions are expected to lead to cost savings for GM and Chrysler.
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This story appeared in
Bank Digest.
A letter drafted by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Darrell Issa, R-Calif., raising concerns about the $2 billion Housing Finance Agency Innovation Fund for the Hardest Hit Housing Market (Hardest Hit Fund) has prompted the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), Neil Barofsky, to announce an audit of the fund. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Issa stated his concerns over the program's opacity, waste, and poor planning and requested that Treasury make available basic information about how the projects subsidized by the Hardest Hit Fund will be proposed, evaluated and assessed. When Issa did not receive a response from Geithner, he wrote to SIGTARP, requesting an audit of the fund.
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By Gregg D. Killoren, J.D., CCH State Banking Law Reporter, Bank Digest and Individual Retirement Plans Guide.
The Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) has released an audit report assessing the Treasury Department's process to sell warrants received from Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) recipients. Under the Emergency Economic Stablization Act of 2008, the Treasury Department received warrants or debt instruments for every investment it made in under TARP. The warrants provide the Treasury the option of purchasing common stock of the publicly-held financial institution that received TARP funds at a predetermined price. As the recipient institutions repay the TARP funds, the Treasury sells the warrants either directly to the recipient institution or through a public auction. The audit seeks to determine: (1) the process and procedures the Treasury has established to ensure that the government receives fair market value for the warrants; and (2) the extent to which the Treasury follows a consistent and well-documented process in reaching its decision to sell warrants back to recipient institutions.
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