Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

About

The Federal Reserve supervises the following entities and has the statutory authority to take formal enforcement actions against them:

• State member banks
• Bank holding companies
• Savings and loan holding companies
• Nonbank subsidiaries of bank holding companies and of savings and loan holding companies
• Edge and agreement corporations
• Branches and agencies of foreign banking organizations operating in the United States and their parent banks
• Officers, directors, employees, and certain other categories of individuals associated with the above banks, companies, and organizations (referred to as"institution-affiliated parties")

Generally, the Federal Reserve takes formal enforcement actions against the above entities for violations of laws, rules, or regulations, unsafe or unsound practices, breaches of fiduciary duty, and violations of final orders.  Formal enforcement actions include cease and desist orders, written agreements, prompt corrective action directives, removal and prohibition orders, and orders assessing civil money penalties.

Since August 1989, the Federal Reserve has made all final enforcement orders public in accordance with the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989; since November 1990, it has made all written agreements public in accordance with the Crime Control Act of 1990. Since July 21, 2011, the Federal Reserve has made public all final enforcement actions taken by the Federal Reserve regarding savings and loan holding companies.  The formal enforcement actions are made public through a press release and the posting of the order or agreement on the public website of the Board of Governors.  Formal enforcement actions taken by the Federal Reserve before August 1989 are not public.

Since 2008, the Federal Reserve posts "Section 19 Letters" on the Board of Governors' public website.  Section 19 Letters (referring to section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, 12 U.S.C. § 1829) are sent by the Federal Reserve Banks to institution-affiliated parties who the Reserve Banks learn have been convicted of, or have entered into a pretrial diversion or similar program for, certain criminal offenses and are therefore prohibited from participating in the affairs of insured depository institutions, their holding companies, or credit unions without prior regulatory or judicial approval. The Section 19 Letters posted on the Board of Governors' website are intended to include only those individuals whose criminal offenses relate to their conduct at an entity supervised by the Federal Reserve.

Enforcement actions against the following institutions or their affiliated parties can be found at the website of the institution's regulator:

Institution	Regulator
State nonmember banks and insured branches of foreign banks	Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Credit unions	National Credit Union Administration
National banks, federal savings associations, and federally chartered branches and agencies of foreign banks	Office of the Comptroller of the Currency