Overview
Yesterday, three former executives at Freddie Mac, the embattled federal home loan mortgage agency, asked Judge Sullivan to throw out all charges brought against them by the SEC. The SEC claims that former CEO Richard Syron, former Chief Business Officer Patricia Cook, and former Senior Vice President Donald Bisenius committed securities fraud by failing to disclose to investors the extent of Freddie Mac’s subprime holdings between March 2007 and August 2008. Syron, Cook, and Bisenius contend that the SEC’s complaint is “an ill-conceived attempt to cast blame on defendants for losses that resulted from an unprecedented deterioration in the housing market that virtually no one expected -- including the Commission and other federal regulators." Calling the SEC’s case "misguided" and "implausible,” the defendants asked the Court to dismiss the SEC’s complaint with prejudice.