SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - California's regulations on banks sharing customers' personal information are not completely pre-empted by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the 9th Circuit ruled.
The American Bankers Association sued California after its Legislature passed the California Financial Information Privacy Act. The circuit ruled in 2005 that federal law pre-empted the Act's affiliate-sharing provision "insofar as it attempts to regulate the communication between affiliates of 'information'."
The circuit remanded to district court to see if any part of the affiliate-sharing provision was severable. The district court said no. Judge Graber reversed on appeal, ruling that the pre-empted application should be severed from the law.
Graber ruled that narrowing the statute to exclude the regulation of consumer report information would have preserved the intent of the California Legislature.
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