UBS AG, the largest Swiss bank, won dismissal of a U.S. pension fund’s lawsuit claiming it made misstatements and omissions in a $2.5 billion offering of mortgage-backed securities in 2007, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The Pension Trust Fund for Operating Engineers failed to sue Zurich-based UBS within the required one-year period after it should have begun investigating underwriting problems in home loans backing the securities, the U.S. Appeals Court in Philadelphia ruled yesterday. The Operating Engineers first sued in federal court in New Jersey on Feb. 22, 2010. The pension fund should have investigated after a separate lawsuit was filed on Sept. 9, 2008, in California state court against UBS Securities LLC and Countrywide Financial Corp. alleging false and misleading statements in offerings, the appeals court said. Countrywide originated 52 percent of the mortgages backing the certificates and IndyMac Bancorp Inc. originated 40 percent, according to the ruling. IndyMac failed in mid-2008 and Countrywide was acquired by Bank of America Corp. in 2008.
