Supreme Court to the Fed: Release Dirt on '08 Crisis Loans

Banks sought to block details from media
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 21, 2011 4:58 PM CDT
Supreme Court to the Fed: Release Dirt on '08 Crisis Loans
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2011.   (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The Federal Reserve will release information on several emergency loans it made to prominent banks when the financial crisis struck in 2008, CNNMoney reports. Bloomberg News initially filed a lawsuit against the Fed in an attempt to gain details on the loans; the Fed declined the request due to "trade secrets" that might be revealed in the fine print. While the banks and Fed won the initial lawsuit, an appellate court ruled that the media should get the information.

Banks then appealed to the Supreme Court, but the nation's high court today declined without comment to intervene—a tacit sign of agreement with the plaintiffs. "The Board will fully comply with the courts' decisions and is preparing to make the information available," a Fed spokesman says. The Fed made $9 trillion in overnight loans to banks during the initial months of the financial crisis. (More Federal Reserve stories.)

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