Bank Runs And Bank Libels

Allen Matkins
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Allen Matkins

The big financial news on Friday was the failure of Silicon Valley Bank.  According to the DFPI's order, an announcement of a capital raise by the bank triggered a run on the bank:

Despite the bank being in sound financial condition prior to March 9, 2023, investors and depositors reacted by initiating withdrawals of $42 billion in deposits from the Bank on March 9, 2023, causing a run on the Bank.

The DFPI appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver.  DFPI took this action pursuant to California Financial Code Section 592.

A run is triggered when depositors panic and they all rush to withdraw their funds.  Sometimes panic can be triggered by false rumors.  That is presumably the motivation behind California Financial Code Section 1327(a) which makes it a crime to "talk trash" about a bank.  See Don't Talk Trash About A California Bank.  In that post, I speculated that the statute may be unconstitutional.  Two years later, a California Court of Appeal did just that in Summit Bank v. Rogers, 206 Cal. App. 4th 669 (2012).  See  Court Declares Bank Trash Talk Statute Facially Unconstitutional.  

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DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

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