BIRMINGHAM, Ala.-NCUA finally released to Corporate America CU records related to the failure of U.S. Central FCU.
Corporate America, searching for an accounting for the ill-fated capital conversion at U.S. Central in the winter of 2008, was seeking some 750,000 pages of records related to the demise of the one-time $52-billion corporate.
NCUA began releasing the records last week, some five months after the corporate first sought access to the documents. "We started asking for these documents in May and we filed suit and began receiving them eight days later," Corporate America CEO Thomas Bonds said. "I am satisfied that we are beginning to get access to the documents, but I still remain perplexed as to why NCUA did not produce the documents five months ago..."
The Alabama corporate in October 2009 filed suit against U.S. Central executives and directors over the $450-million capital bid and had been wrangling over the data with NCUA, which assumed control over U.S. Central when the agency put the corporates' corporate into conservatorship.Earlier this year, Corporate America learned NCUA made more than 750,000 pages of documents available to the executives and directors of U.S. Central it is suing, and sought access to the same documents.
At press time Corporate America had only begun sifting through the pages, and the delay by NCUA, to Bonds, raises greater concerns about the reasons behind U.S Central's failure. "We tried every way that we could short of the lawsuit to get NCUA to comply," Bonds explained. "We want the truth to come out."
Bonds said he believes the scope of the its lawsuit against U.S. Central could grow bigger, noting more defendants could be added to the case and contends it is in the best interest of all CUs to uncover what led to the failure of U.S. Central. "NCUA has been talking a lot about the importance of transparency. Why then would they delay in providing us these documents?"
NCUA declined to comment.
