NCUA legal opinions: Still good?
NAFCU’s Compliance Team is often asked if a particular NCUA legal opinion is still valid guidance or how to determine if an opinion has been superseded. NCUA’s website, on its Rules and Regulations page, describes the parameters and limitations of the staff opinions and interpretive letters:
As a public service, and in an effort to help credit unions, lawyers, and others having an interest in the law applicable to federally insured credit unions better understand the statutes and regulations administered by the National Credit Union Administration, the NCUA publishes certain of staff’s legal opinions and interpretive letters issued since 1991. The NCUA has not attempted to identify or publish all, or even most, letters on a particular subject prior to that year, and there may be other letters that have not been selected for publication. Similarly, the NCUA generally does not review opinions or letters once they have been published for the purpose of flagging or removing those that may have become outdated, superseded or discredited, or that may have been revised, modified, revoked or suspended. Further, the letters’ conclusions may be limited to specific facts stated in the letters and do not necessarily apply to circumstances involving different or additional facts. The NCUA’s Office of General Counsel is available to assist the public in determining whether a particular interpretation or opinion remains correct. You can contact the Office of General Counsel at ogcmail@ncua.gov or 703-518-6540.
Compliance professionals may want to note that the interpretations selected by the agency as published opinions are just a limited collection of the agency’s interpretations on the statutes and regulations within its jurisdiction; there are internal agency interpretive letters and memoranda that are not made available to the public. Also, public opinions available online go back only as far as 1991. The interpretations are also fact-specific so a credit union should be careful in extending a letter’s conclusion to its own facts and circumstances. If in doubt about an opinion’s applicability, credit unions should contact NCUA’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) for assistance in determining whether it may rely on a particular opinion.
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