TUSCALOOSA, Ala.–The Alabama CU Administration said it will not be appointing an interim CEO at Alabama One Credit Union, which it took over via conservatorship late last week, and instead will manage the credit union itself.
The conservatorship has raised questions over what will become of a lawsuit the CU had filed against the regulator, which, is now technically both the defendant and the plaintiff in the litigation (see related story).
In an e-mail to CUToday.info last week the ACUA declined to comment on who would be the interim CEO after a number of management team members were removed in the conservatorship, saying only that new management was in place and that the former board had also been dismissed.
Over the weekend the Tuscaloosa News confirmed that the ACUA has no plan to put an interim CEO in place at the $598-million credit union. Instead, the Tuscaloosa News quoted Sarah Moore, ACUA’s administrator, as saying that staff from her agency and two people who have been named ACUA “special agents” have been put in charge of running Alabama One.
The ACUA said it put Alabama One in conservatorship due to the failure of the credit union’s management to comply with a cease-and-desist order that was issued in spring and mandated major changes in Alabama One’s operations. The credit union challenged that initial cease-and-desist order in court, and lost.
In its conservatorship order, the ACUA said it took the action because Alabama One had:
- Willful violation of the cease-and-desist order.
- Concealment of books, papers, records and assets from examination and inspection by authorized ACUA agents.
- Persistent patterns and practices by Alabama One officers and employees who used their positions to jeopardize the assets and interest of credit union members.
The ACUA said that the credit union also provided preferential terms and conditions were given in credit to insiders and the brother of an executive officer; auto loan documents were falsified on insider loans; an officer or employee of the Alabama One received “a thing of value and personal advantage in connection with procuring or endeavoring to procure a loan.”