During the closed National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Board meeting on October 23, the NCUA Board considered an administrative enforcement action under Section 206 of the Federal Credit Union Act.
The agency also decided to keep this administrative enforcement action confidential.
However, keeping administrative enforcement actions confidential was not the intention of Congress, when it enacted the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989. Congress wrote that the federal banking agencies, including NCUA, were to make public administrative enforcement orders.
While the Federal Credit Union Act does allow NCUA to not publish an administrative enforcement action if it is in the public interest, I believe lawmakers wanted this discretionary authority to be rarely used.
NCUA's fears that such disclosures will harm a credit union is ill-founded. There is no evidence that the publication of an enforcement order will harm a depository institution.
By keeping this administrative enforcement action confidential, the NCUA Board is once again thumbing its nose at the rule of law.
Thumbing their nose at the Rule of Law. No say it isn't so. Not the NCUA. So what else is new? Typical standard operating procedure at the NCUA. No surprise.
ReplyDeleteThe OIG should investigate NCUA's last xx years of enforcement orders and whether their decision to keep almost all of them confidential was really justified. I think we would find that the few that were published were retaliatory - intended to embarrass the recipient, while many of the rest might be more embarrassing for NCUA. I’d be very surprised and alarmed if many of those kept confidential, other than perhaps some of the corporates, had anything to do with public confidence.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, seeing the orders might give the rest of us a little more confidence that they (NCUA) know what they are doing. ...Or not. And the result might tell us if the OIG is really independent.
The Chairman of NCUA prides herself on being transparent about the actions of her agency. The problem is that her definition of transparency is only show them what you want them to know.
ReplyDeleteWho needs the ABA to kill the entire credit union industry when you have the NCUA? Credit Unions' would be wise to conduct a risk assessment on the NCUA. Privately insured state chartered credit unions are presenting a nice alternative to the madness of Duke Street
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