Bank of America asked a court to bar prosecutors from presenting trial evidence and claims that the bank and its Countrywide unit “are responsible for causing the worldwide financial crisis in whole or in part.”
“Evidence or argument that attempts to link a particular defendant to the nation’s recent economic struggles, whether it be the government’s fiscal troubles or any of the multitude of negative effects of the mortgage crisis and recession, is unfairly prejudicial,” lawyers for Countrywide and BofA said in papers filed late Wednesday in US District Court in Manhattan.
The US sued Bank of America, run by CEO Brian Moynihan, intervening in a whistle-blower action filed by ex-Countrywide exec Edward O’Donnell. The US claims BofA and Countrywide, which it acquired in 2008, sold thousands of defective loans from 2007 to 2009 to the home-mortgage finance companies. The trial is to begin next week.
The companies said in their filing that the global crisis “was a once-in-a-generation, multifaceted event to which a substantial number of factors contributed.”