12 C.F.R. Subpart C—Public Observation of NCUA Board Meetings Under the Sunshine Act
Title 12 - Banks and Banking
This subpart contains regulations implementing subsections (b) through (f) of the “Government in the Sunshine Act” (5 U.S.C. 552b). The primary purpose of these regulations is to provide the public with the fullest access authorized by law to the deliberations and decisions of the Board, while protecting the rights of individuals and preserving the ability of the agency to carry out its responsibilities. For the purpose of this subpart: (a) Agency means the National Credit Union Administration; (b) Board means the National Credit Union Administration Board, whose members were appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate; (c) Subdivision of the Board means a group composed of two Board members authorized by the Board to act on behalf of the agency; (d) Meeting means any deliberations by two or more members of the Board or any subdivision of the Board that determine or result in the joint conduct or disposition of official agency business with the exception of: (1) Deliberations to determine whether a meeting or a portion thereof will be open or closed to public observation and whether information regarding closed meetings will be withheld from public disclosure; (2) deliberations to determine whether or when to schedule a meeting; and (3) infrequent dispositions of official agency business by sequential circulation of written recommendations to individual Board members (“notation voting procedure”), provided the votes of each Board member and the action taken are recorded for each matter and are publicly available, unless exempted from disclosure pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552 (the Freedom of Information Act); (e) Public observation means that a member or group of the public may listen to and observe any open meeting and may record in an unobtrusive manner any portion of that meeting by use of a camera or any other electronic device, but shall not participate in any meeting unless authorized by the Board; (f) Public announcement or publicly announce means making reasonable efforts under the particular circumstances to fully inform the public, especially those individuals who have expressed interest in the subject matters to be discussed or the decisions of the agency; (g) Sunshine Act means the open meeting provisions of the “Government in the Sunshine Act” (5 U.S.C. 552b.) Except as provided in §791.12(a), any portion of any meeting of the Board shall be open to public observation. The Board, and any subdivision of the Board, shall jointly conduct official agency business only in accordance with this subpart. (a) Under the procedures specified in §791.14, the Board may close a meeting or any portion of a meeting from public observation or may withhold information pertaining to such meetings provided the Board has properly determined that the public interest does not require otherwise and that the meeting (or any portion thereof) or the disclosure of meeting information is likely to: (1) Disclose matters that are: (i) Specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive Order to be kept secret in the interests of national defense or foreign policy, and (ii) In fact properly classified pursuant to such Executive Order; (2) Relate solely to internal personnel rules and practices; (3) Disclose matters specifically exempted from disclosure by statute (other than section 552 of title 5 of the United States Code, the Freedom of Information Act), provided that such statute: (i) Requires that the matters be withheld from the public in such a manner as to leave no discretion on the issue, or (ii) Establishes particular criteria for withholding or refers to particular types of matters to be withheld; (4) Disclose trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential; (5) Involve accusing any person of a crime, or formally censuring any person; (6) Disclose information of a personal nature where disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy; (7) Disclose investigatory records compiled for enforcement purposes, or information which if written would be contained in such records, but only to the extent that the production of such records or information would: (i) Interfere with enforcement proceedings, (ii) Deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication, (iii) Constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, (iv) Disclose the identity of a confidential source and, in the case of a record compiled by a criminal law enforcement authority in the course of a criminal investigation, or by a Federal agency conducting a lawful national security intelligence investigation, confidential information furnished only by the confidential source, (v) Disclose investigative techniques and procedures, or (vi) Endanger the life or physical safety of law enforcement personnel; (8) Disclose information contained in or related to examination, operating, or condition reports prepared by, on behalf of, or for the use of Federal agencies responsible for the regulation or supervision of financial institutions; (9) Disclose information the premature disclosure of which would be likely to (i)(A) lead to significant speculation in currencies, securities, or commodities, or (B) significantly endanger the stability of any financial institution, or (ii) be likely to significantly frustrate implementation of a proposed action, except that this paragraph (a)(9) shall not apply in any instance where the Board has already disclosed to the public the content or nature of its proposed action, or where the Board is required by law to make such disclosure on its own initiative prior to taking final action on such proposal; or (10) Specifically concern the issuance of a subpoena, participation in a civil action or proceeding, an action in a foreign court or international tribunal, or an arbitration, or the initiation, conduct or disposition of a particular case of formal agency adjudication pursuant to the procedures in section 554 of title 5 of the United States Code or otherwise involving a determination on the record after opportunity for a hearing. (b) Prior to closing a meeting whose discussions are likely to fall within the exemptions stated in paragraph (a) of this section, the Board will balance the public interest in observing the deliberations of an exemptible matter and the agency need for confidentiality of the exemptible matter. In weighing these interests, the Board is assisted by the General Counsel as provided in §791.16, by expressions of the public interest set forth in requests for open meetings as provided by §791.15(b), and by the brief staff analysis of public interest which will accompany each staff recommendation that an agenda item be considered in a closed meeting. (a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, the Board shall, for each meeting, make a public announcement, at least one week in advance of the meeting, of the time, place and subject matter of the meeting, whether it will be open or closed to public observation, and the name and telephone number of the Secretary of the Board or the person designated by the Board to respond to requests for information about the meeting. (b) Advance notice is required unless a majority of the members of the Board determine by a recorded vote that agency business requires that a meeting be called at an earlier date, in which case, the information to be announced in paragraph (a) of this section shall be publicly announced at the earliest practicable time. (c) A change, including a postponement or a cancellation, in the time or place of a meeting after a published announcement may be made only if announced at the earliest practicable time. (d) A change in or deletion of the subject matter of a meeting or any portion of a meeting or a redetermination to open or close a meeting or any portion of a meeting after a published announcement may be made only if: (1) A majority of the Board determines by recorded vote that agency business so requires and that no earlier announcement of the change was possible and (2) Public announcement of the change and of the vote of each member on such change shall be made at the earliest practicable time. (e) Each meeting announcement or amendment thereof shall be posted on the Public Notice Bulletin Board in the reception area of the agency headquarters and may be made available by other means deemed desirable by the Board. Immediately following each public announcement required by this section, the stated information shall be submitted to the (f) No announcement shall contain information which is determined to be exempt from disclosure under §791.12(a). (g) The agency shall maintain a mailing list of names and addresses of all persons who wish to receive copies of agency announcements of meetings open to public observation and amendments to such announcements. Requests to be placed on the mailing list should be made by telephoning or by writing to the Secretary of the Board. (a) A decision to close any portion of a meeting and to withhold information about any portion of a meeting closed pursuant to §791.12(a) will be taken only when a majority of the entire Board votes to take such action. In deciding whether to close a meeting or any portion of a meeting or to withhold information, the Board shall independently consider whether the public interest requires an open meeting. A separate vote of the Board will be taken and recorded for each portion of a meeting to be closed to public observation pursuant to §791.12(a) or to withhold information from the public pursuant to §791.12(a). A single vote may be taken and recorded with respect to a series of meetings, or any portions of meetings which are proposed to be closed to the public, or with respect to any information concerning the series of meetings, so long as each meeting in the series involves the same particular matters and is scheduled to be held no more than thirty days after the initial meeting in such series. No proxies shall be allowed. (b) Any person whose interests may be directly affected by any portion of a meeting for any of the reasons stated in §791.12(a) (5), (6) or (7) may request that the Board close such portion of the meeting. After receiving notice of a person's desire for any specified portion of a meeting to be closed, the Board, upon a request by one member, will decide by recorded vote whether to close the relevant portion or portions of the meeting. This procedure applies to requests received either prior or subsequent to the announcement of a decision to hold an open meeting. (c) Within one day after any vote is taken pursuant to paragraph (a) or (b) of this section, the Board shall make publicly available a written copy of the vote taken indicating the vote of each Board member. Except to the extent that such information is withheld and exempt from disclosure, for each meeting or any portion of a meeting closed to the public, the Board shall make publicly available within one day after the required vote, a written explanation of its action, together with a list of all persons expected to attend the closed meeting and their affiliation. The list of persons to attend need not include the names of individual staff, but shall state the offices of the agency expected to participate in the meeting discussions. (a) Following any announcement that the Board intends to close a meeting or any portion of any meeting, any person may make a written request to the Secretary of the Board that the meeting or a portion of the meeting be open. The request shall be circulated to the members of the Board, and the Board, upon the request of one member, shall reconsider its action under §791.14 before the meeting or before discussion of the matter at the meeting. If the Board decides to open a portion of a meeting proposed to be closed, the Board shall publicly announce its decision in accordance with §791.13(e). If no request is received from a Board member to reconsider the decision to close a meeting or portion thereof prior to the meeting discussion, the Chairman of the Board shall certify that the Board did not receive a request to reconsider its decision to close the discussion of the matter. (b) The request to open a portion of a meeting shall be submitted to the Secretary of the Board in advance of the meeting in question. The request shall set forth the requestor's interest in the matter to be discussed and the reasons why the requestor believes that the public interest requires that the meeting or portions thereof be open to public observation. (c) The submission of a request to open a portion of a meeting shall not act to stay the effectiveness of Board action or to postpone or delay the meeting unless the Board decides otherwise. (d) The Secretary of the Board shall advise the requestor of the Board's consideration of the request to open a portion of the meeting as soon as practicable. For each meeting or any portion of a meeting closed to public observation under §791.14, the General Counsel shall publicly certify, whether in his or her opinion, the meeting or portion thereof may be closed to public observation and shall state each relevant exemption provision of law. A copy of the certification, together with a statement from the presiding officer of the meeting setting forth the time and place of the meeting and the persons present, shall be retained as a part of the permanent meeting records. As part of the certification, the General Counsel shall recommend to the Board whether the public interest requires that the meeting or portions thereof proposed to be closed to public observation be held in the open. (a) Except in those circumstances which are beyond the control of the agency, the Board shall maintain a complete transcript or electronic recording adequate to record fully the proceedings of each meeting, or any portion thereof, closed to public observation. However, for meetings closed under §791.12(a) (8), (9)(i) or (10), the Board shall maintain either a transcript, a recording or a set of minutes. The Board shall maintain a complete electronic recording for each open meeting or any portion thereof. All records shall clearly identify each speaker. (b) A set of minutes shall fully and clearly describe all matters discussed and shall provide a full and accurate summary of any actions taken, and the reasons for taking such action. Minutes shall also include a description of each of the views expressed by each person in attendance on any item and the record of any roll call vote, reflecting the vote of each member. All documents considered in connection with any action shall be identified in the minutes. (c) The agency shall maintain a complete verbatim copy of the transcript, a complete copy of the minutes or a complete electronic recording of each meeting, or any portion of a meeting, closed to public observation, for at least two years after such meeting or for one year after the conclusion of any agency proceeding with respect to which the meeting or any portion was held, whichever occurs later. The agency shall maintain a complete electronic recording of each open meeting for at least three months after the meeting date. A complete set of minutes shall be maintained on a permanent basis for all meetings. (a) The agency shall make promptly available to the public, in the Public Reference Room, the transcript, electronic recording, or minutes of any meeting, deleting any agenda item or any item of the testimony of a witness received at a closed meeting which the Board determined, pursuant to paragraph (c) of this section, was exempt from disclosure under §791.12(a). The exemption or exemptions relied upon for any deleted information shall be reflected on any record or recording. (b) Copies of any transcript, minutes or transcription of a recording, disclosing the identity of each speaker, shall be furnished to any person requesting such information in the form specified in paragraph (a) of this section. Copies shall be furnished at the actual cost of duplication or transcription unless waived by the Secretary of the Board. (c) Following each meeting or any portion of a meeting closed pursuant to §791.12(a), the General Counsel or his designee, after consultation with the Secretary of the Board, shall determine which, if any, portions of the meeting transcript, electronic recording or minutes not otherwise available under 5 U.S.C. 552a (the Privacy Act) contain information which should be withheld pursuant to §791.12(a). If, at a later time, the Board determines that there is no further justification for withholding any meeting record or other item of information from the public which has previously been withheld, then such information shall be made available to the public. (d) Except for information determined by the Board to be exempt from disclosure pursuant to paragraph (c) of this section, meeting records shall be promptly available to the public in the Public Reference Room. Meeting records include but are not limited to: The transcript, electronic recording or minutes of each meeting, as required by §791.17(a); the notice requirements of §§791.13 and 791.14(c); and the General Counsel Certification along with the presiding officer's statement, as required by §791.16. (e) These provisions do not affect the procedures set forth in part 792, subpart A, governing the inspection and copying of agency records, except that the exemptions set forth in §791.12(a) of this subpart and in 5 U.S.C. 552b(c) shall govern in the case of a request made pursuant to part 792, subpart A, to copy or inspect the meeting records described in this section. Any documents considered or mentioned at Board meetings may be obtained subject to the procedures set forth in part 792, subpart A. [53 FR 29647, Aug. 8, 1988, as amended at 58 FR 17493, Apr. 5, 1993; 64 FR 57365, Oct. 25, 1999]
Title 12: Banks and Banking
PART 791—RULES OF NCUA BOARD PROCEDURE; PROMULGATION OF NCUA RULES AND REGULATIONS; PUBLIC OBSERVATION OF NCUA BOARD MEETINGS
Subpart C—Public Observation of NCUA Board Meetings Under the Sunshine Act
§ 791.9 Scope.
§ 791.10 Definitions.
§ 791.11 Open meetings.
§ 791.12 Exemptions.
§ 791.13 Public announcement of meetings.
§ 791.14 Regular procedure for closing meeting discussions or limiting the disclosure of information.
§ 791.15 Requests for open meeting.
§ 791.16 General counsel certification.
§ 791.17 Maintenance of meeting records.
§ 791.18 Public availability of meeting records and other documents.
