WaMu judge excludes examiner report
Yet another twist in the Washington Mutual bankruptcy proceedings and the attempt by shareholders to get at least some value out of the deal. Shareholders, who had requested the appointment of an examiner to investigate the possibility of improprieties by JPMorgan Chase and possibly others in influencing (helping) the failure and seizure of Washington Mutual, were disappointed last month when the examiner reported that he found nothing wrong. The heart of their argument for having an examiner appointed was this:
Some Washington Mutual stakeholders have argued that JPMorgan engineered a plan to damage Washington Mutual Bank so it could buy it on the cheap, engaging in sham negotiations to gain confidential information from Washington Mutual that it then misused and leaked to gain an unfair advantage in obtaining the bank assets at a fire sale price.
The shareholders were able to convince the judge to exclude the examiners report excluded from the bankruptcy proceedings. The current bankruptcy plan is based in part on the examiners report.
WaMu failure | admin December 3, 2010
