U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III has awarded the court-appointed trustee overseeing the liquidation of Thornburg Mortgage $45 million in his crisis-era lawsuit against Royal Bank of Canada since the bank undervalued the seized mortgage-backed securities it sold.
The judge ruled Wednesday in Baltimore that RBC Capital, the lender’s investment-banking arm, improperly sold the assets backing repurchase agreements the mortgage lender had used to fund its business. RBC seized the mortgage securities after Thornburg defaulted during the turmoil in the mortgage market in August 2007.