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- BUSINESS, Page 66Business NotesTHRIFTSGive Me Back My S&L
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- In pushing to clean up the savings and loan mess, have
- federal regulators acted too hastily in declaring some thrifts
- insolvent? A federal judge in Topeka thinks so in at least one
- case. Last week he ordered the Office of Thrift Supervision to
- return control of an S&L to its original owners on the ground
- that the agency used "arbitrary and capricious" accounting
- methods to justify seizing the thrift, Franklin Savings
- (assets: $9.3 billion) of Ottawa, Kans.
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- The OTS claimed Franklin had "insufficient capital and
- operated in an unsound and unsafe manner." But the owners of
- the S&L argued that the OTS made serious accounting errors in
- interpreting Franklin's financial statements. Federal judge
- Dale Saffels ordered Franklin handed back to its owners, but
- regulators won a temporary stay of that order from a Denver
- federal appeals court. A victory for Franklin would undoubtedly
- hearten the 25 other S&Ls with similar suits against the OTS.
- And it would give new force to the contention that the agency
- has at times been overzealous in taking over thrifts that
- should have been left alone.
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