Oral Arguments Set Today for NCUA FOM Appeal

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is set to hear oral arguments this morning in American Bankers Association’s ongoing legal challenge to the National Credit Union Administration’s field of membership (FOM) rule.

During the hearing, the judges will hear NCUA’s appeal of District Judge Dabney Friedrich’s ruling overturning the provisions of the agency’s rule related to combined statistical areas and rural districts. Meanwhile, ABA is cross-appealing Friedrich’s opinion upholding the provision of the rule permitting credit unions to serve core-based statistical areas without serving the urban core that defines the area—provisions the judge upheld despite calling them “troubling,” “jarring” and “a barely reasonably interpretation of the statute.”