In 1989, members of Congress who were supporting an amendment to the proposed Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act ("FIRREA") wore this pin while lobbying their colleagues. Their amendment, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), would have reaffirmed contracts the government had made in the early 1980s with over 100 banks and thrifts pursuant to which the financial institutions agreed to assume the responsibility to pay over $20 billion in debt which otherwise would have become the government's responsibility. However, after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a legal opinion to Congress advising that the banks and thrifts had never had valid contracts in the first place, the Hyde Amendment was defeated. Seven years later, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a lopsided 7-2 vote, found in favor of the thrifts, ruling that DOJ's legal opinion was incorrect and that FIRREA breached the thrifts' contracts. Despite the high court's eight-year-old ruling, the U.S. government -- which has had the use of $20 billion of other people's money for almost 25 years now, has yet to pay any meaningful compensation for its wrongful conduct.
|
The King is Dead Long Live the King!
The Curious Case of Nonappropriated Fund Instrumentalities
The above is the title of an article which appeared in the February, 2006 edition of the Connecticut Law Review. Written by Evan C. Zoldan, a former law clerk for two of the former judges of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, it is perhaps the most thorough and complete review of the history and background of the Non-Appropriated Funds doctrine that has been written and it makes a very compelling argument that the so-called 'doctrine' has been erroneous from the very beginning. As it is copyrighted, we cannot make it available here, but we can provide a link to where it can be found:
|