The Supreme Court delivered its decision in Cuomo v. the Clearing House Association today. The issue in the case was whether the a regulation passed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) preempted state enforcement of state fair lending laws against national banks. Coming on the heels of the OCC's victory in Wachovia v. Watters, in which the Supreme Court held that a state could not exercise visitorial powers over an operating subsidiary of a national bank, many thought that the Supreme Court would extend the OCC's power to near complete preemption of any state authority over national banks. To the surprise of many observers, however, the Court ruled 5-4 (Thomas, with Roberts, Kennedy, and Alito dissenting) in favor of the State of New York (Cuomo).
