The 2008 financial crisis cost investors, consumers and businesses alike. Sub-prime lending practices devolved into a riskier regime from their time of inception to address disproportionate ratios in racial borrowing power in the 1980s to the housing bubble of the early 2000s. The bubble was popped by too many homeowners being unable to make payments and the resulting foreclosures. A domino effect reverberated across the whole economy due to a lower amount of money available to the middle class to make investments in the marketplace. The fact that banks had engaged in fraudulent lending and insuring on top of the inherently risky subprime mortgaging practice has come to surface in the wake of the Great Recession.

Some of the nation’s and world’s largest banks were involved in the fraudulent practices. Their practices have borne numerous lawsuits both civil and criminal. Among them are cases brought against Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase & Co. by the U.S. Department of Justice.