SUNTRUST SETTLES $21 MILLION U.S. BIAS COMPLAINT

"At the core of the [discrimination] complaint is a simple story: If you were African-American or Latino, you likely paid more for a SunTrust [home] loan than a similarly qualified white borrower simply because of your skin color... you paid what amounted to a racial surtax that ranged from hundreds to thousands of dollars" --- Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice.

Richmond, Virginia-based SunTrust Mortgage, Inc. has agreed to pay $21 million to settle a federal discrimination lawsuit alleging biased and predatory home lending practices against African-Americans and Latinos.

It is the second-largest fair lending [Fair Housing Act and Equal Credit Opportunity Act] settlement ever obtained by the U.S. Department of Justice. The largest settlement occurred in 2011 with the record $335 million fair-lending settlement with Countrywide, a subsidiary of Bank of America.

The Justice Department's complaint against SunTrust was filed in the U.S. District Court in Richmond, Virginia and alleged that SunTrust Mortgage had charged more than 20,000 Black and Hispanic home loan borrowers more than similarly qualified non-Hispanic white borrowers between 2005-2009.

Minority borrowers in 75 geographic markets stretching from Virginia Beach to San Francisco paid more in loan fees or higher interest rates based solely on race or national origin, according to the complaint.

As part of the settlement SunTrust, like Bank of America's Countrywide, is required to adopt policies that would prevent discrimination in the future.

[Maryland Lawyer, Monday, June 4, 2012; Huffington Post, June 14, 2012; jurist.org/paperchasenewsburst, Friday, June 1, 2012; www.cleveland.com/business/SunTrust/ May 31, 2012]