NCUA Claims Access to All Internal Deliberations

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Federal examiners have the legal right to all privileged and confidential discussions of federal credit union directors, including those conducted in executive session, NCUA ruled Friday. “An FCU must make minutes of all meetings of its board of directors available to NCUA examiners upon request,” the federal regulator said in a new legal opinion. That includes records covered by attorney-client privilege, which had been previously exempt from NCUA review because of a court’s potential citation as a waiver of that privilege. But a recent statutory change establishes that submission of any information to the federal or state regulator will not waive attorney-client privilege. The opinion was issued to the chairman of the board for Community Resource FCU, in Latham, N.Y., who questioned NCUA’s right to review minutes of executive session meetings.