SCOTUS to Fed: Release Loan Data

Bloomberg reports:

The U.S. Federal Reserve Board on Monday said it is preparing to release sensitive emergency lending data from the peak of the 2008 financial crisis after the Supreme Court rejected a bid by major banks to keep the information secret.

The justices, in a short written order, left in place a 2010 federal appeals court decision that ordered the Fed to identify commercial banks that received emergency loans from the central bank during the crisis. Shortly after the announcement, a Fed spokesman said the central bank would release the information, but didn't provide a timeframe.

"The Board will fully comply with the court's decisions and is preparing to make the information available in accordance with the court's actions," the spokesman said.

An earlier trial-court order in the case gave the Fed five business days to release the information. That order was stayed while the case was on appeal.

Following the central bank's controversial use of taxpayers' money to fight the financial crisis, the Fed last December disclosed details of trillions of dollars in loans made to financial firms, companies and foreign central banks to comply with the Dodd-Frank financial law. But it didn't detail which banks borrowed from the central bank's discount window, a short-term lending program for banks facing liquidity issues.

The Clearing House Association, a trade group representing large banks, had warned that releasing the borrowing data would allow the public to draw inferences "whether justified or not" about the banks' current financial conditions.

The Supreme Court, without comment, on Monday refused to consider the group's appeal.

At issue was a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Bloomberg LP's Bloomberg News that sought details about bank borrowing from the Fed's discount window. Bloomberg also sought borrowing details on other Fed emergency lending programs.

Like the banks, the Fed had fought vigorously against disclosing the data, but it gave up the legal fight after losing at the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year. The Clearing House group said the U.S. solicitor general, the government's lawyer at the high court, didn't let the Fed file an appeal to the Supreme Court.

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