Federal Banking Agencies Issue Notice of Proposed Rule to Amend Uniform Administrative Rules

On March 22, 2022, the Federal Reserve Board (“Fed”), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”), National Credit Union Administration (“NCUA”) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPR”) amending the Uniform Rules of Practice and Procedures (“Uniform Rules”) governing the conduct of banking agencies’ administrative proceedings.  

The Fed stated these amendments are intended to help modernize the Uniform Rules and to incorporate the operations of the agencies in recent years which are not reflected in the rules. The rulemaking proposes the following key amendments:

• References to gender, such as “him or her,” “his or her,” and “himself or herself,” would be changed to gender neutral terminology;

• Addition of the terms “nonbank financial companies” and “financial market utilities” designated by the Financial Stability Oversight Council to its definition of “institution” to clarify that these rules apply to such entities;

• Electronic signatures would be permitted to satisfy the signature requirements for a good faith certification, as required by every filing or submission of record following the issuance of notice;

• The current section governing electronic media will be replaced with a section permitting filing to be “accomplished by electronic mail or other electronic means”;

• The current requirement that the original and one copy of the filing be filed with the agency will be removed from the Uniform Rules;

• The definition of “documents” that are subject to discovery will “include not only writings, drawings, graphs, charts, photographs, and recordings, but electronically stored information and data or data compilations stored in any medium from which information can be obtained”; and

• Use of electronic presentations during a hearing may be directed by the administrative law judge (“ALJ”). 

In addition, the agencies are proposing changes to the OCC's rules specific to “OCC investigations, hearings before the OCC, and other OCC-related proceedings involving national banks” (“Local Rules”) to integrate these rules into the Uniform Rules.

Financial institutions should review the proposed amendments and ensure that they are apprised of the new administrative procedures, which they will be expected or permitted to follow.