An Update on Bank and Savings Association Preemption Authority

Federal law provides an array of preemption authorities for national banks and federal savings associations that apply to both lending and non-lending activities. State banks and savings associations can take advantage of narrower preemption authority. Traditional wisdom in the preemption area was recently called into question by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In Lusnak, a case involving a California law requiring the payment of interest on escrow deposits, the Ninth Circuit adopted a restrictive view of federal preemption and gave no deference to an OCC interpretive rule. This decision, coupled with the potential for increasingly aggressive enforcement of consumer protection laws by state authorities, could be a precursor to new challenges to the preemption authority of national banks, federal savings associations, and their state-chartered counterparts.

In this webinar, we will address the following topics:

• The preemptions of state law available to national banks and federal savings associations

• The narrower preemption authority available to state-chartered institutions

• The interaction between the U.S. Supreme Court's Barnett Bank opinion, Dodd-Frank, and OCC preemption regulations

• Recent preemption developments, including Lusnak

• The application of preemption standards to "true lender" and Madden attacks on bank sponsorship programs

• Steps banks and savings associations should take to prepare for challenges to their preemption authority