Credit Union Timesrecently asked the attorneys on the Credit Union Team at Kaufman & Canoles for their predictions for the top 10 major legal challenges for credit unions in 2013.
Since Kaufman & Canoles believes that legal fees for credit unions need to be better managed, controlled and hopefully even reduced, we have elected to highlight only seven predictions, rather than 10. They are as follows:
1. Mergers. Andy Keeney predicts that there will be as many as 200 "friendly" mergers in 2013. The NCUA reportedly has "pre-selected" merger partners or merger candidates. They are pushing some healthy credit unions to merge. Unfortunately, there is little published legal guidance on mergers. The NCUA recently conducted a 1 1/2 hour webinar on how to do a merger. In 2013, the agency may "burden" credit unions who want to merge with potential time delays and regulatory objections. We predict that the regulatory issues and legal issues will be overcome and mergers of credit unions will continue to increase.
2. Legal Opinions. Ran Randolph predicts that legal opinions will return as a customary part of member business loans in 2013. Before the recession, some credit unions decided to forego requiring borrower's counsel to render legal opinions on transaction fundamentals such as good standing and enforceability of loan documents. However, because of recent problems in MBLs, more and more credit unions likely will insist upon legal opinions to gain the comfort factor on those issues a legal opinion can provide.
