Oregon Public Broadcasting

One year ago Friday, Washington Mutual became the largest bank in U.S. history to fail.  As Kristian Foden-Vencil reports, the bankruptcy case is still crawling through the courts and several lawsuits have been added.

On September 25th last year, the federal government seized Washington Mutual and placed it into receivership with the FDIC.

Over the previous 10 days, depositors had withdrawn more than $16 billion -- and the government was worried about a continued run.

The seizure was seen as everything from: "government backed theft," to "the onlyway to save a crumbling banking system."

The FDIC sold Washington Mutual to JP Morgan Chase for less than $2 billion.

Over the space of a year, WaMu stockholders had seen the price of their stock drop from $45 to $.16 a share.

In March, Washington Mutual’s holding company filed suit against the FDIC seeking damages of $13 billion – citing an unjustifiably low sales price.

JP Morgan Chase promptly filed a counter claim.

Both cases are still in court in Washington D.C.