WASHINGTON — A Texas bank's court challenge claiming that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is unconstitutional is wildly speculative and baseless, the Department of Justice said this week.
In a filing with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Justice said that the $285 million-asset State National Bank of Big Spring and its allies, which include three state attorneys general, lacked legal standing to file a lawsuit against CFPB and the Dodd-Frank law that created it.
The bank filed the lawsuit in June claiming, among other things, that pending CFPB regulations concerning mortgages and remittances had caused it to exit those businesses, reported American Banker, an affiliate of Credit Union Journal. Such allegations are critical because in order to have legal standing, the institution must first establish that it has been harmed.
The Justice Department said State National Bank failed that key test.
"Despite the roving allegations of unconstitutionality set forth in the amended complaint, not one of the statutorily authorized actions that plaintiffs speculate might someday cause them harm has yet occurred," the Justice Department wrote. "Having failed to allege any actual or imminent injury flowing from the challenged provisions of Dodd-Frank establishing the bureau, or from Richard Cordray's appointment as director of the Bureau, SNB lacks standing to pursue these claims."
