


UBS will pay U.S. authorities $1.44 billion to settle the last lingering legal case over Wall Street’s role in the housing bubble of the early 2000s, which ultimately led to the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession.
The Swiss bank agreed to pay a civil penalty over how it handled the sale of 40 mortgage-backed securities issued in 2006 and 2007. The settlement argues that UBS bankers gave false and misleading statements about the health of the mortgages in those bonds.
With the UBS settlement, the last remaining outstanding legal case from the Great Recession has now come to a close, the Justice Department said. Banks paid collectively more than $36 billion in civil penalties for their conduct related to the mortgage crisis.
United States Steel Corp. said that it rejected a $7.3 billion buyout proposal from rival Cleveland Cliffs and was reviewing “strategic alternatives” after receiving several unsolicited offers.
Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel said it rejected the offer because Cleveland-Cliffs was pushing it to accept the terms without being allowed to conduct proper due diligence.
“At this juncture, we cannot determine whether your unsolicited proposal properly reflects the full and fair value of the Company. For all of the above reasons, the Board has no choice but to reject your unreasonable proposal,” U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt said in a letter, released Sunday, to Cleveland Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves.
Cleveland-Cliffs announced it had made an offer valuing the U.S. Steel at $7.3 billion, based on $17.50 a share in cash and 1.023 shares of Cliffs stock. Cleveland-Cliffs said the value of the offer was $35 a share.
U.S. Steel stock shot up $8.36 on Monday, closing at $31.08, a nearly 37% gain.