Foreclosure-fraud class action lawsuits are starting to pile up against major banks across the country, threatening a besieged industry with billions more in potential losses.

Bank executives are swarming Capitol Hill this week to defend themselves against multiple foreclosure-related investigations, including one by all 50 state attorneys general. Talks are under way in that probe in hopes of reaching a settlement, but that wouldn't extinguish the mounting threat of an avalanche of class actions.

A congressional watchdog said in a report issued Tuesday that the foreclosure document debacle could threaten major banks with billions of dollars in losses, further prolong the housing depression and damage the government's effort to keep people in their homes.

The class actions, which could be expanded nationally, seek damages for homeowners whose properties were illegally foreclosed upon by banks using fraudulent documents. Suits have been filed in Maryland, New Jersey and Massachusetts that target Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., HSBC PLC and JPMorgan Chase & Co. In Florida and Maine, Ally Financial, formerly known as GMAC Mortgage, is also being targeted.

A class action lawsuit has been filed in Federal Court on behalf of investors who purchased the common stock of RINO International Corporation during the period from March 31, 2009 to November 11, 2010, Inclusive. The lawsuit seeks to recover damages for violations of federal Securities Laws.

The Complaint asserts violations of Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 against RINO and certain of its officers and directors for misrepresenting the company's true financial performance. The Complaint alleges that contrary to the company's annual report filed with the SEC for fiscal 2009 which reported $193 million of revenue, the company's annual report filed with the Chinese authorities reported only $11 million of revenue for 2009. This discrepancy, along with other accounting inconsistencies, and questionable transactions between RINO and its management, has raised red flags and prompted an internal review. The Complaint asserts that when the market learned of this adverse information, the price of RINO stock dropped, damaging investors.

No class has yet been certified in the action. Until a class is certified you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. Sohmer & Stark, LLC has not filed a lawsuit against the defendants.

If you purchased RINO shares during the period from March 31, 2009 to November 11, 2010 and want to discuss your legal rights, at no cost and without obligation, please contact Amir M. Stark, Esquire at Sohmer & Stark, LLC (toll free:888-811-7179)

Sohmer & Stark, LLC has extensive experience litigating shareholder actions across the United States and has recovered millions of dollars on behalf of injured shareholders.

BRITISH Airways and other carriers accused of fixing cargo prices could face US-style class action suits in Britain for the first time. A ruling on the case is expected today.

Two flower shippers who were denied the right to form a group to sue British Airways now wait for the Court of Appeal ruling.

A ruling in favour of the flower shippers could show it is possible to adopt a class action model in the UK without waiting for new legislative changes, London-based antirust lawyer Frances Murphy, who leads the antitrust practice at Jones Day LLP, told Bloomberg.

The ruling tomorrow has the potential to “mushroom”, said Murphy, by making it cheaper and faster to seek damages in the UK against companies that collude to inflate prices.

British Airways and 10 other carriers were fined a total of 799.4 million euros by the European Union last week following a three year probe of the cartel.

Customer class actions are rare in the UK, and have not been done on the scale that they have in the US.

If the cargo customers win their appeal and are permitted to form a call to sue the airline, the Court would essentially be loosening a Century-old rule, brining the UK closer to the US in terms of recovery for customers, Bloomberg reports.

The Cook County Board has approved a $55.3 million settlement in a class-action civil lawsuit alleging that thousands of inmates at the county jail were improperly strip searched.

The settlement resulted from the county losing several federal court rulings stemming back to 2006. The courts had already determined the strip search procedures improper and the county has changed them.

The attorneys representing the former jail inmates will be paid $15 million, reports indicate, while the remainder of the funds will be divided among as many as 400,000 inmates jailed between January 30, 2004 and March 19, 2009. The County's insurance will cover $10 million of the settlement, and taxpayers the rest.

In the latest data-pass news, a federal judge denied a motion to dismiss several counts in a class action against security software company McAfee. The suit alleges that McAfee transferred consumers’ credit card information immediately after they purchased software but before they downloaded it. Pop-up ads would appear from a third party with a “Try It Now” button that, when clicked by consumers, would enroll them in a monthly program.    

The plaintiffs claim they believed they needed to click on the button to download their software and that McAfee received a fee for each customer who subscribed to the services of Arpu, Inc. via the ad on McAfee’s site. The complaint alleges that the plaintiffs only later learned they were enrolled in a monthly program with Arpu, costing $4.95 per month, and that McAfee transferred their confidential billing information without adequately disclosing what they were signing up for.

U.S. District Court Judge Lucy H. Koh said the plaintiffs could sue under California’s unfair business practices statute even though they could not claim any actual damages. Because the plaintiffs sought disgorgement of profits and restitution from McAfee based on the company’s business practices, their claims satisfied the state law, she said.

Discussing the plaintiffs’ allegations, the judge said there were several facets of the pop-up ad that could deceive a “significant portion of the public” into believing that the ad was affiliated with McAfee. The sequential placement of the ad, the fact that Arpu’s name appears nowhere on the pop-up, and the fact that the only reference to a third party appears in fine print makes it “difficult not to view the ad as an attempt to conceal [the] source and to pass off both the ad and the product as McAfee’s own,” the judge said.

Judge Koh also noted differences that could have tipped consumers off, adding that the plaintiffs were “unable to allege with any precision McAfee’s role in or responsibility for the content of the pop-up ad.” Although the court allowed the plaintiffs’ state law claims to continue, it dismissed claims under the Lanham Act, determining that the allegedly deceptive elements of the pop-up ad were not sufficient to establish a likelihood of injury by direct diversion of sales or a lessening of goodwill.

Jury selection begins Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court in a lending discrimination class action against Wells Fargo Bank. Class members are loan customers in minority communities in Los Angeles. Plaintiffs’ counsel will be arguing that Wells Fargo consistently and knowingly discriminated against borrowers in minority neighborhoods, resulting in these borrowers paying more for their loans than borrowers in other parts of Los Angeles County. (Opal Jones, et. al v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, et. al Los Angeles Superior Court, Case No. BC337821). Judge Anthony J. Mohr is the presiding judge.

When certifying the class last year, Judge Mohr referred to The Unruh Civil Rights Act. The Act makes it illegal to deny, aid or incite a denial, or make any discrimination or distinction on the basis of, among other things, race, color or national origin. This includes the failure or refusal to provide all persons with full and equal advantages and services in all business establishments.

According to the class action filing, Wells Fargo introduced a computer program in 2002 called “Loan Economics,” which gave loan officers the ability to offer discounts to loan applicants that lowered overall loan costs through reduced fees and interest rates. The lawsuit alleges that branches in predominately white communities could use the program to price loans, while bank branches in predominately minority communities were prevented from doing so by Wells Fargo management.

A $450 million class action is being launched on behalf of National Australia Bank shareholders who lost money during the global financial crisis because of NAB's exposure to toxic debt.

Legal firm Maurice Blackburn will lodge the claim in a Victorian court tomorrow.

The firm says NAB had bought $1.2 billion in collateralised debt obligations (CDO) in 2006 which had a heavy exposure to the US sub-prime housing market.

It will allege that between early January and late July that year, NAB failed to properly disclose to shareholders all material information relating to its CDO exposure.