Securities regulators accused Wells Fargo on Friday of failing to turn over documents in connection with a probe into the bank's $60 billion sale of mortgage-backed securities during the financial crisis.
The Securities and Exchange Commission's filing in a California federal court seeks to compel the bank to hand over documents. The SEC said it has issued several subpoenas since September 2011.
A Wells Fargo spokeswoman had no immediate comment.
In the company's annual regulatory filing in February, the bank disclosed it had received a Wells Notice from the SEC in connection with disclosures of its mortgage-backed securities offering documents. A Wells Notice warns companies and individuals about possible SEC enforcement action.
"Wells Fargo continues to provide information requested by the various agencies in connection with certain investigations," the bank said in the filing.
The SEC said on Friday it is looking into whether Wells Fargo made "material misrepresentations or omitted material facts" in offerings it made to investors from September 2006 through early 2008.
The SEC charges that a due diligence review of a sampling of the securitized loans was done, and some of those loans would be dropped because they failed to meet the bank's underwriting standards.
But the regulator said it "does not appear that Wells Fargo took any steps to address similar deficiencies in the remainder of the loans in the pool, which were securitized and sold to investors."
SOURCE Reuters