Fed
Pre-Approves
Mergers,
BB&T FOIA
Release to
Inner City
Press Shows
By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Exclusive
SOUTH
BRONX, July 29
-- This month
the Federal
Reserve Board
quietly
announced a
willingness to
pre-approve,
or to indicate
a willingness
to approve,
bank mergers
proposals even
before the
public is made
aware of them.
To some, this
shows how
little the
regulator has
learned from
the financial
meltdown.
Inner
City Press has
also just
learned, via a
Freedom of
Information
Act
request and
appeal, that
the Fed has
even this year
been
entertaining
bank merger
proposals
under code
names such as
"Project
Palm,"
assigned to
BB&T's
proposal with
BankAtlantic.
Click here
for
Governer
Jerome
Powell's
response
to Inner City
Press' FOIA
Appeal. Click
here
for some of
the documents
released.
The deal is
still pending.
When
the Fed on
July 11
announced the
policy by a "Supervisory
Letter,"
its press
release
provided a
telephone
number in
Washington for
media
inquiries.
Inner City
Press called
the number and
asked among
other things
how it would
impact review
under the
Community
Reinvestment
Act, which
involves
public notice
and comment.
Inner City
Press will not
here report
the name of
the person
answering,
because it
was insisted
that no name
could be
given.
Rather
Inner City
Press was
directed to
the FOIA
footnote of
the
Supervisory
Letter,
that some
records about
the
pre-approvals
will be
available,
after the
fact, under
FOIA.
But
while the Fed
is
pre-approving,
the public
will have no
way to know
what records
to request.
This can be
called false
transparency.
Even
on BB&T's
"Project
Palm," it is
only now that
the Fed
releases
records
half-showing
its response
to Inner City
Press'
February 2012
comment on and
against the
proposal.
The
just-released
records show
that on
February 7,
Claudia A.
VonPervieux
of Fed staff
was "working
on a draft
rejection
letter for
M.Lee"
of Inner City
Press when the
Fed belatedly
realized that
the Press
was right:
public notice
had
disappeared
such that one
couldn't know
what to
comment on.
And
so a brief
extension of
the comment
period was
granted, but
only for
Inner City
Press, which
did not cure
the problem of
lack of notice
to
the public at
large. See
released
e-mails,
attached. And
so it goes
at the Fed.
Inner
City Press is
working on
another FOIA
story with
documents due
this
week from
Washington. On
both cases,
judicial
review of
denial of
access to
information on
appeal may
well be
warranted.
Watch this
site.
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