Court Ruling Nullifies Missouri FOMrules

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - (04/18/06) – Operations at least 10 statechartered credit unions, some of them the biggest in Missouri, wereput into limbo by the state court’s ruling striking down thestate’s community chartering rules. The Missouri CUCommission, which has approved all of the community grants struckdown by the court, ordered the state’s credit unionsupervisor Monday to draft a new field of membership rule forcommunity charters. But that process is expected to take up to fourmonths to accomplish, throwing operations for some of thestate’s biggest credit unions into disarray. They includeTelecom CU, Vantage CU, St. Louis Postal CU, First Community CU andAlliance CU. The Cole Superior Court ruled March 26 that expansivecommunity charters granted these and other state credit unions wereillegal because communities encompassing millions of people andnumerous counties did not qualify under the definition of a"well-defined local community, neighborhood, or ruraldistrict,” as is immortalized in both NCUA’s and thestate’s law. it is unclear whether the state regulator willappeal the ruling by the Cole County Court.