The Supreme Court today issued its decision in Cuomo v. The Clearing House Association and Office of the Comptroller of Currency, No. 08-453.
Summary
The Court ruled that the National Bank Act's grant of visitorial exclusivity to the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) did not prohibit lawsuits filed by state governments seeking to enforce state laws, even if those suits involve the lending practices of national banks.
The Court unanimously held, however, that States could not rely on administrative subpoenas (or the threat of administrative subpoenas) to obtain information from a national bank because that would be equivalent to prohibited visitation. Instead, a State may invoke the judicial process by initiating civil litigation (like any other litigant), or by seeking to obtain a search warrant from a court, if it can establish to the court that it has probable cause to believe there is a violation of state law.
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