http://www.startribune.com/business/112411259.html?elr=KArks:DCiU1OiP:DiiUiacyKUnciaec8O7EyUrWells Fargo & Co., already facing a $29.9 million jury verdict for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty to four Minnesota nonprofits, must pay fees, costs and interest that could add up to $15 million or more, a judge has ruled.
Ramsey County District Judge M. Michael Monahan, in an order filed Wednesday, also took the nation's fourth-largest bank to task for "years of management complacency, if not hubris" that resulted in undisclosed risks and eventually losses by customers of the bank's securities-lending investment program. The judge said that the nonprofits' lawyers, led by Minneapolis litigator Mike Ciresi, provided a "public benefit" by bringing the bank's wrongdoing to light. Thus, Monahan said, the bank must pay the plaintiffs' attorneys fees and costs, which Ciresi's firm estimated at more than $15 million. The judge put off setting exact amounts.
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"The judge didn't just find that Wells Fargo acted with disregard to the rights and interests of the particular plaintiffs," Fruth said of Monahan. "He said the way it ran the program was with disregard to the rights of the customers. ... He has made a finding that is going to bind Wells Fargo in other cases."
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Monahan said that he found the executives' statements "to be almost childlike" and that he accepts "that one of the primary functions of subordinates in today's corporate America is to shield their ultimate superiors from accumulating embarrassing information."
nice to see a judge calling them out on their crappy business practices - still like to see some bank execs heading to jail...
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