Florida Department of Banking & Finance v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Florida Department of Banking & Finance v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Opinion of the Court
ON REMAND FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
The Supreme Court, by order of January 30, 1986, — U.S.-, 106 S.Ct. 875, 88 L.Ed.2d 913, vacated our decision in Florida Department of Banking and Finance v. Board of Governors, 760 F.2d 1135 (11th Cir. 1985), and remanded the case for further consideration in light of its recent decision in Board of Governors v. Dimension Financial Corp., 474 U.S. -, 106 S.Ct. 681, 88 L.Ed.2d 691 (1986). The Dimension decision squarely rejects the reasoning behind our vacated opinion and, consequently, we affirm the order of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the Board) approving the application of U.S. Trust Corporation to expand the nonbanking activity of its wholly owned “nonbank bank” Florida subsidiary,
What We Said
The facts of this case are laid out in detail in our earlier opinion, 760 F.2d at 1136-38, and we shall not repeat them here. Suffice it here to say that we reversed the Board’s approval of U.S. Trust’s application on the grounds that the Board should have used its rulemaking power under § 5(b) of the Bank Holding Company Act (the Act), 12 U.S.C. § 1844(b), to prevent U.S. Trust’s evasion of the Douglas Amendment.
What They Said
In Board of Governors v. Dimension Financial Corp., 474 U.S.-, 106 S.Ct. 681, 88 L.Ed.2d 691 (1986), the Supreme Court held that the Federal Reserve Board exceeded its delegated authority when it expanded the definition of “bank” contained in the Bank Holding Company Act. The Board had enacted “Regulation Y,” to bring so-called “nonbank banks” within its regulatory fold by expanding the statutory definition of “bank” to include institutions that offered the functional equivalent of traditional banking services. The Board defined “demand deposits” to include deposits, like NOW accounts, which are “as a matter of practice” payable on demand, 12 C.F.R. § 225.2(a)(1)(A) (1985), and it defined the “making of a commercial loan” to include “the purchase of retail installment loans or commercial paper, certificates of deposit, bankers’ acceptances, and similar money market instruments.” 12 C.F.R. § 225.2(a)(1)(B) (1985).
The Supreme Court affirmed the Tenth Circuit’s invalidation of the Board’s amended regulations. It rejected the Board’s expanded definition of “demand deposit” as contrary to the Act’s express language.
What We Now Say
As we read Dimension, our earlier result cannot stand. It is an elementary precept of statutory construction that the definition of a term in the definitional section of a statute controls the construction of that term wherever it appears throughout the statute. 1A Sutherland, Sutherland on Statutory Construction § 20.08 at 88 (4th ed. 1985). Thus, a depository institution which is not a bank as defined in § 1841(c) is similarly not a bank for purposes of the Douglas Amendment, § 1842(d)(1). If it were a bank, we would be faced with the anomaly of “bank” meaning one thing in one section of the Act and another thing in another.
Because U.S. Trust’s Florida subsidiary will not make commercial loans, it is not a “bank” within the meaning of the Act. If, as Dimension holds, the Federal Reserve Board is without regulatory jurisdiction to regulate nonbank banks as “banks” under
We recognize that, by our holding today, we sanction a result that clearly frustrates the congressional purpose expressed in the Douglas Amendment. Dimension, however, ties our hands. When Congress progressively fine-tuned the definition of “bank” in its 1966 and 1970 amendments to the Bank Holding Company Act, it inadvertently created the opportunity for non-bank banks to spring to life. It is Congress, therefore, that must now decide whether it wishes to shepherd the nonbank banks inside the regulatory pale. “If the Bank Holding Company [Act] falls short of providing safeguards desirable or necessary to protect the public interest, that is a problem for Congress, and not the Board or the courts to address.” Dimension, 474 U.S. at-, 106 S.Ct. at 689, 88 L.Ed.2d at 702.
The petitioners’ challenge to Federal Reserve Board approval of U.S. Trust Corporation’s application to charter U.S. Trust Company of Florida is denied.
AFFIRMED.
. Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, no application (except an application filed as a result of a transaction authorized under section 1823(f) of this title) shall be approved under this section which will permit any bank holding company or any subsidiary thereof to acquire, directly or indirectly, any voting shares of, interest in, or all or substantially all of the assets of any additional bank located outside of the State in which the operations of such bank holding company’s banking subsidiaries were principally conducted on July 1, 1966, or the date on which such company became a bank holding company, whichever is later, unless the acquisition of such shares or assets of a State bank of an out-of-State bank holding company is specifically authorized by the statute laws of the State in which such bank is located, by language to that effect and not merely by implication. For the purposes of this section, the State in which the operations of a bank holding company’s subsidiaries are principally conducted is that State in which total deposits of all such banking subsidiaries are largest.
12 U.S.C. § 1842(d)(1).
. The original 1956 Act defined "bank” to include any institution that could obtain a bank charter. Chapter 240, § 2(c), 70 Stat. 133 ("any national banking association or any State bank, savings bank, or trust company”). In 1966, Congress amended the definition to include only those institutions offering "deposits that the depositor has a legal right to withdraw on demand,” i.e., checking accounts. 1966 Amendments, Pub.L. No. 89-485, § 3, 80 Stat. 236, 237. In 1970, Congress further amended the Act to remove from the “bank” definition institutions that did not make commercial loans. 1970 Amendments, Pub.L. No. 91-607, § 101(c), 84 Stat. 1760, 1762 (codified at 12 U.S.C. § 1841(c)).
The legislative history of these amendments indicates that in 1966, Congress intended to maintain the traditional separation between banking and the industrial and securities sectors of the economy. See S.Rep. No. 1179, 89th Cong., 2d Sess. 7, reprinted in 1966 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 2385, 2391 ("the bill redefines ‘bank’ as an institution that accepts deposits payable on demand (checking accounts), the commonly accepted test of whether an institution is a commercial bank so as to exclude institutions like industrial banks and nondeposit trust companies”). In 1970, Congress again intended to keep separate banking and commerce by eliminating the so-called "one bank loophole.” See 49 Fed.Reg. 794, 835 (1984). When the 1970 amendments were enacted, the Federal Reserve Chairman testified that the modified definition of bank would have only limited effect, possibly confined to a single institution. See id. at 834 (letter of Federal Reserve Chairman Burns to Chairman Sparkman of the Senate Banking and Commerce Committee).
. The Act defines "bank” to include institutions which "accept[ ] deposits that the depositor has a legal right to withdraw on demand.” 12 U.S.C. § 1841(c). The Board redefined demand deposits to include deposits that were "as a matter of practice” payable on demand. Since the Board’s definition conflicted with the statutory language, the Court concluded that the definition was an unreasonable interpretation of the Act. 474 U.S. at-, 106 S.Ct. at 685-86, 88 L.Ed.2d at 698-99.
. The Court declared that “commercial loan substitutes,” such as the purchase of retail installment loans, commercial paper, certificates of deposit, bankers’ acceptances, and similar money market instruments, do not fall within the commonly accepted definition of commercial loans. 474 U.S. at-, 106 S.Ct. at 686-88, 88 L.Ed.2d at 699-702. The Board’s argument to the contrary was undercut by earlier Board decisions distinguishing money market transactions from commercial loans.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF BANKING AND FINANCE v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF the FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM, Respondent FLORIDA BANKERS ASSOCIATION, and Sun Bank/Palm Beach v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF the FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
- Cited By
- 1 case
- Status
- Published