WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 /PRNewswire/ — The Center for Responsible Lendingjoined today with 15 other groups in filing a brief supporting New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s efforts to enforce discrimination lawsagainst national banks.
Spitzer asked the banks to explain why the numbers the federal governmentrequires them to make public each year show racial disparities in the banks’mortgage lending.
Some banks contend a state official like Spitzer doesn’t have theauthority to enforce state discrimination laws against them. Their federalregulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, agrees and suedSpitzer.
The Comptroller sued the same day the Clearing House Association, a groupof banks including JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, and Wells Fargo, asked a federalcourt to bar Spitzer from making them reveal the information.
The Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research andadvocacy group, opposes the federal agency’s aggressive effort to overturndecades of state and local governments enforcing their own fair-lending lawsand says federal law supports the center’s position.
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