The Illinois AG filed a lawsuit this week against Countrywide, alleging that the now imploded mortgage lender steered blacks and Latinos into riskier subprime loans more often than whites, even when they qualified for safer mortgages.
In addition, the suit accuses Countrywide of charging minorities higher fees than whites. If they lose, Bank of America, which bought Countrywide, would be fined $25,000 for each violation.
"These charges relate to Countrywide practices well before Bank of America acquired the company. We are disappointed with the attorney general's decision to pursue litigation," said Bank of America in a statement. "We have fully cooperated with their investigation and have pointed out significant flaws in the methodology which we believe has been used as the basis for these claims."
According to the complaint, the discrimination was the result of in a failure of policy. (Emphasis ours.)