Fannie Mae has reported in an SEC filing that it is under a criminal investigation and that it is the defendant in a plethora of shareholder lawsuits.
According to a FORM 8-K filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Fannie, which is formally known as the Federal National Mortgage Association, reported it has been “asked by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, as part of a criminal investigation, to preserve certain documents, including documents relating to the matters discussed in the OFHEO report.”
Last week, Armando Falcon Jr., director of the OFHEO, or Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, testified to Congress that Fannie’s accounting violations can’t be dismissed as mere differences of interpretation in accounting rules. “Fannie Mae understood the rules and simply chose not to follow them,” Falcon said, according to a transcript of his prepared testimony.
At the same hearing, Fannie CEO Franklin D. Raines and CFO J. Timothy Howard denied the allegations.
The SEC filing also disclosed that the attorney general of Ohio has announced a preliminary inquiry on behalf of Ohio’s public pension funds.
On top of the inquiries, the filing noted that eight lawsuits are being prepared or have been filed by shareholders against the Washington, D.C.-based company.
