HSBC Holdings Plc was accused of targeting minority borrowers in Chicago with high-cost mortgage loans as Cook County, Ill., followed other local governments in trying to hold subprime lenders liable for urban blight, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Cook County, second in size only to Los Angeles County, seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for its alleged costs to police and maintain deteriorating neighborhoods and from lost tax revenue on vacant properties, according to the complaint filed March 21 against HSBC North America Holdings. The county’s lawsuit against HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, mirrors claims brought by Baltimore, Cleveland, and Memphis, Tennessee, targeting banks under the Fair Housing Act for making loans to minority borrowers who didn’t qualify for them, or for giving high-interest subprime mortgages to minority borrowers who could have qualified for prime loans.
