Fannie Mae-No Politics (FNMA)

[kthomp19]

The SC decision is not an impenetrable barrier to any future judicial review of the FHFA/Treasury agreements. It's a point in time, single case denial.

Not really. The Supreme Court said that the NWS was a valid act of FHFA as conservator; by that token it's hard to imagine what wouldn't be.

There may very well be a future FHFA action that is challenged for exceeding it's authority. Just because it didn't exceed in the last case doesn't mean anything FHFA does in the future is not excessive or beyond what it should do as a Conservator or Receiver.

Technically but not realistically possible. The NWS seemed like the most blatant APA violation ever and the Supreme Court stuffed an elephant into a mousehole anyway. Court cases cost tons of time and money, and I can't see who would be willing to take that risk.

Additionally, the FHFA Director can allow or request a judicial review, challenge the legitimacy or legality of any of it's agreements or policies, something the shareholders were denied. The anti-injunction clause does not apply to the agency itself.

Mark Calabria actually tried this, and he was shot down by Treasury and the DOJ. The DOJ told him that the government speaks with one voice and quashed his bid to argue against Treasury in the Collins case.

Technically HERA doesn't allow for FHFA to do the bidding of any other agency, but it has basically done so quite often in the past, and now that the President can fire the FHFA Director at will that clause is all but moot.

As for the remedy being cash and cash only. Sure, just peanuts. However, it sets the precedent that fair dealing breaches are not going to be under the radar any longer. While they still wield a lot of power, it shows that the FHFA & Treasury cannot operate with complete impunity.

If you're arguing that other past/present/future FHFA actions might be challenged as breaches of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, I suppose that's possible. But even those remedies would be only for cash. And probably far less than the $612M in the NWS case because it's hard to imagine what challenged actions would be viewed as more detrimental than the NWS.