WASHINGTON (MNI) – The following was issued Tuesday by the Federal
Reserve:

The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday announced a Consent Order
against Morgan Stanley to address a pattern of misconduct and negligence
in residential mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure processing at its
subsidiary, Saxon Mortgage Services, Inc. Morgan Stanley sold a
substantial portion of the assets of Saxon to Ocwen Financial
Corporation on April 2, 2012, and has taken other actions to cease to
conduct residential mortgage servicing. Prior to the completion of these
actions, Saxon was the 34th largest mortgage servicer in the United
States.

The Consent Order requires Morgan Stanley to retain an independent
consultant to review foreclosure proceedings initiated by Saxon that
were pending at any time in 2009 or 2010. The review is intended to
provide remediation to borrowers who suffered financial injury as a
result of wrongful foreclosures or other deficiencies identified in a
review of the foreclosure process. The foreclosure review will be
conducted in a manner consistent with the reviews currently underway at
several large mortgage servicers that consented to enforcement actions
brought by the banking agencies last year.

If Morgan Stanley re-enters the mortgage servicing business while
the Consent Order is in effect, it will be required to implement
enhanced corporate governance, risk-management, compliance, borrower
communication, servicing, and foreclosure practices comparable to what
the mortgage servicers subject to the 2011 enforcement actions were
required to implement.

As noted in the announcements relating to the 2011 enforcement
actions, the Federal Reserve believes monetary sanctions are appropriate
and plans to announce monetary penalties in these cases. The monetary
penalties against Morgan Stanley will be in addition to the corrective
actions that Morgan Stanley will be taking pursuant to todays action.
Morgan Stanley has acknowledged that it will be responsible for
satisfying any civil money penalty that the Board of Governors could
have assessed against Saxon for its conduct.

** MNI Washington Bureau: 202-371-2121 **

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