Bank of America Corp.’s Countrywide unit won tentative final approval of a $500 million securities class-action settlement with investors in its devalued residential mortgage-backed securities, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer, at a hearing yesterday in Los Angeles, set aside objections from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which had argued as receiver of 19 failed banks that the accord disproportionately favors a subclass of the investors. The settlement resolves claims that Countrywide, the largest U.S. mortgage lender when it was taken over by Bank of America in 2008, misled investors in offering documents about the quality of the home loans that were pooled for the securities. Many of the securities had been given the highest credit ratings and lost value when they were cut to junk during the collapse of the U.S. housing market.
