UPDATE: Bank of America Announces Agreement on Legacy Countrywide Mortgage Repurchase and Servicing Claims

Bank of America Corporation BAC today announced that it has reached an agreement to resolve nearly all of the legacy Countrywide-issued first-lien residential mortgage-backed securitization repurchase exposure, representing 530 trusts with original principal balance of $424 billion. The settlement with The Bank of New York Mellon BK, the trustee for the RMBS trusts covered by the settlement, is supported by a group of major institutional investors represented by Gibbs & Bruns LLP, and is subject to final court approval and certain other conditions. With this agreement and other mortgage-related actions in the second quarter of 2011, the company believes it will have recorded reserves in its financial statements for a substantial portion of its representations and warranties exposure as measured by original unpaid principal balance. The company also is estimating a range of possible loss for the remainder. The agreement includes a cash payment of $8.5 billion to the covered trusts to be made after final court approval of the settlement. Bank of America also intends to record an additional $5.5 billion provision to its representations and warranties liability for both Government-Sponsored Enterprises and non-GSE exposures in the second quarter of 2011.