In recent testimony, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer referred to the
efforts by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to dilute and
stop state enforcement efforts against predatory lending. See also:
Spitzer Warns of Bond Crisis
By Daniel C. Vock – Stateline.org (14 Feb 2008)
Spitzer is right — he tried to stop predatory lending and had his hands tied by the feds and the courts.
The effort to prevent local enforcement and leave municipalities unprotected was, in part, instituted by federal preemption of state laws, an effort led by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
The Comptroller of the Currency who led the initial effort was John D. (Jerry) Hawke.
After stepping down as Comptroller of the Currency in October 2004, Hawke returned to his role as a partner at Arnold & Porter LLP. His practice areas are listed on the firm’s website as Financial Institutions and Subprime Lending Regulation, Enforcement and Litigation.
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Arnold & Porter has a page devoted to their accomplishments in Federal Banking Law Preemption Litigation
“We have played a prominent role in much of the most significant federal banking litigation of the past three decades. For a number of years, Arnold & Porter LLP has been actively involved in challenging, on grounds of federal preemption, state and local efforts to supervise and regulate activities of federally chartered financial institutions. The firm in recent years has developed a particular expertise in representing national banks and federal savings banks in a series of cases involving preemption of state law by the National Bank Act (“NBA”) and the Home Owners’ Loan Act (“HOLA”). In a series of cases, the Arnold & Porter team, including lawyers from the firm’s Washington, DC, New York, and Los Angeles offices, has achieved major victories for national banks, savings and loan institutions, and credit unions threatened with overreaching state and local actions. With a growing number of states and localities seeking to control financial institutions’ activities, these issues have become increasingly important to financial institutions nationwide.”
Law.com reports that Arnold & Porter had revenues of $475 million in 2006 with 691 attorneys as of 2007.
Hawke’s son was an attorney who led the primary litigation that drove me and my company out of Washington. It is always interesting when the son of a person in charge of the integrity of the federal credit is running the person out of town who is trying to protect the integrity of the federal housing credit.
Have you lost money on mortgage securities? Is your municipality in trouble because of the housing bubble? Is your home or the home of someone you love being foreclosed on? Perhaps you would like to tell Jerry and his partners how you feel? Contact information is on the Arnold & Porter website:
John D. Hawke, Jr
Partner
Arnold & Porter LLP
555 Twelfth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004-1206
tel: +1 202.942.5908
fax: +1 202.942.5999
John.Hawke@aporter.com
Then again, it seems to me that it would be far simpler to just stop
banking with and investing in the banks and financial institutions that
behave this way and stop associating with the people who help them do so.