| After Ex-OCC Brooks Cashed Out His
Rule Reversed 52-47 Under Congressional
Review Act
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- The
Source
SOUTH BRONX,
SDNY, May 11 – In the midst of
the Coronavirus pandemic and
after the insurrection,
then-Comptroller of the
Currency Brian Brooks on
January 13 gave another quid
pro quo gift, a bank charter
to Anchorage, even as he quit
with a week left in the
Administration. Inner City
Press asked, Where might he
land and get rewarded for all
this?
In March we
learned: Brooks "joined
blockchain credit startup
Spring Labs as its first
independent director, the
Marina Del Rey,
California-based fintech
bragged." Revolting revolving
door.
Next, moves
to overturn one of Brooks'
last acts: plans to introduce
Congressional Review Act
resolutions to eliminate a
Trump-era regulation that
helps lenders charging 179%
APR or more evade state- and
voter-approved interest rate
caps. The rushed “fake lender”
rule took effect in December
and was issued by the Office
of the Comptroller of the
Currency (OCC). The rule
protects “rent-a-bank” schemes
whereby predatory lenders (the
true lender) launder their
loans through a few rogue
banks (the fake lender), which
are exempt from state interest
rate caps. The rule overrides
200 years’ worth of caselaw
allowing courts to see through
usury law evasions to the
truth, and replaces it with a
pro-evasion rule that looks
only at the fine print on the
loan agreement.
On May 11
in the Senate, the fake lender
rule was overruled under the
Congressional Review Act, by a
vote of 52 to 47, which ran
nearly to 7 pm.
See Fair Finance
Watch tweets here.
Watch this site.
Meanwhile
Inner City Press' requests
under the Freedom of
Information Act into Brooks'
conflicts of interest in the
fintech and crypto-currency
world have yet to be fully
answered. Will Brooks be
taking "his" documents with
him?
Brooks
went whole hog with Anchorage,
the so-called first crypto
bank. It should be reversed -
but will it be? Anchorage was
represented by Dana Syracuse
through the revolving door
from the NYS Department of
Financial Services.
Fair Finance
Watch and others opposed and
requested extensions on
Figure, for which OCC has yet
to answer Inner City Press'
FOIA request, here
***
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