Big banks, business groups sue Fed over ‘opaque’ annual stress tests

Major banks and business groups sued the Federal Reserve on Tuesday, alleging the central bank’s annual “stress tests” of Wall Street firms violate the law.

The lawsuit filed in US District Court in Columbus, Ohio, claims the Fed’s practice of determining how big banks perform against hypothetical economic turmoil, and assigning capital requirements accordingly, do not follow proper administrative procedure.

Plaintiffs included the Bank Policy Institute, the US Chamber of Commerce and the American Bank Association.

The lawsuit marks the latest example of the banking industry growing bolder and challenging in court their regulators’ powers, particularly in the wake of recent Supreme Court rulings placing fresh restrictions on administrative authority.

In June, the Supreme Court dealt a major blow to such power by overturning a 1984 precedent that granted deference to government agencies in interpreting laws they administer.

The so-called “Chevron doctrine” had called for judges to defer to reasonable federal agency interpretations of US laws deemed to be ambiguous.

While the 2010 Dodd-Frank law passed following the global financial crisis broadly requires the Fed to test banks’ balance sheets, the capital adequacy analysis the Fed performs as part of tests, or the resulting capital it directs lenders to set aside, are not mandated by law.

Specifically, the groups are calling for the Fed to make public and subject to feedback the now-confidential models they regulators use to gauge bank performance, as well as details of the annual scenarios they create to test for weaknesses.

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