[JURIST] The US District Court for the District of Colombia Thursday dismissed [opinion, PDF] a derivative lawsuit filed by shareholders of home financial services corporation Fannie Mae [corporate website] to force former CEO Franklin D. Raines, former CFO J. Timothy Howard, and other former board members and executives involved in a major accounting scandal [JURIST report] to repay their bonuses and severance packages to the corporation. Judge Richard Leon [official profile] found the shareholders should first have petitioned the corporation, asking it to sue its board members, before they themselves sued the board members on the corporation's behalf. The shareholders failed to do this, instead proceeding directly to a shareholder lawsuit. The judge also ruled that the shareholders failed to meet

their burden of raising a reasonable doubt that the Board is not entitled to the benefit of the presumption that in making a business decision, the directors acted on an informed basis [with] good faith and in the honest belief that the action taken was in the best interest of the company.