The American Bankers Association filed a brief Friday supporting Community Credit Union of Plano, Tex., in its suit against the National Credit Union Administration.
The ABA's intervention means that all the major bank and credit union trade associations have filed friend-of-the-court briefs this month siding with Community Credit.
Community sued the NCUA last month after the regulator disallowed a member vote that approved by a wide margin its plans to convert to a mutual savings bank.
The ABA's brief argues that Congress assigned oversight authority for credit union-to-mutual thrift conversions to the Office of Thrift Supervision, the agency that regulates most mutual savings banks. By rejecting the conversion vote, the NCUA usurped the OTS' authority, according to the brief.
On Aug. 2 the Credit Union National Association and the National Association of Federal Credit Unions filed a joint brief supporting the NCUA. Eight days later America's Community Bankers and the Independent Community Bankers of America filed a brief backing the $1.4 billion-asset Community.
A hearing on Community's motion for a preliminary injunction blocking the NCUA from preventing its conversion is scheduled for Wednesday. The case is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
