Mortgage Foreclosure & Refinance Resource

The F.B.I. has opened investigations into 14 corporations as part of a crackdown on improper subprime lending, agency officials said on Tuesday. Separately, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley said government investigators were seeking information from them about their subprime mortgage activities. But it was not immediately clear if the disclosures by the three banks were linked to the F.B.I. probes.

F.B.I. officials did not identify the companies they were looking at, but said the investigation reached across the industry to include developers, subprime lenders, companies that securitized loans and investment banks that held them.

The F.B.I. said it was investigating the cases with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has opened about three dozen investigations into the subprime market collapse.

Targets of the S.E.C. probe include the Swiss bank UBS and the American investment banks Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns, as well as the bond insurer MBIA. It was not clear whether any of those companies were involved in the F.B.I. investigation.

The S.E.C., which has formed an internal subprime-mortgage task force, is looking at how financial firms priced mortgage-based securities and whether they should have told investors earlier about the declining value of those securities.

Bear Stearns said it was cooperating with requests from government entities and regulators for information relating to subprime mortgages, mortgage securitizations, collateralized debt obligations and synthetic products tied to subprime mortgages.

Goldman said it was cooperating with similar requests related to securitizations, collateralized debt obligations and synthetic products tied to subprime mortgages.

Morgan Stanley, meanwhile, said it was responding to subpoenas and information requests from governments and regulators concerning subprime and non-subprime mortgages.

The corporate investigations are part of an FBI crackdown on improper subprime lending, which also includes a focus on fraud in loan origination.

The agency had about 1200 active cases, up 40 per cent from 2006, with 321 criminal complaints or indictments, officials said.

“Subprime loans are decreasing but … suspicions of mortgage fraud are increasing.”

Some of the loan origination cases were spurred by individuals lying to qualify for mortgages, but about 80 per cent of the cases involved fraud for profit. Particular problem areas included California, Texas, Arizona, Florida, and the Midwest, officials said.