The Clearing House Association filed an amicus brief with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York In Re Citigroup Inc. Bond Litigation, opposing the plaintiffs’ unprecedented attempt to obtain confidential communications between Citigroup and its regulators that are covered by the bank examination privilege. The brief points out that these records are the confidential property of the regulatory agencies and that no court has ever allowed litigants to have access to confidential bank examination records without first obtaining the agency’s permission or at least allowing the agency to object in court to the release of the records. In a ruling issued on December 5, Judge Stein found that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate “good cause” necessary to overcome the privilege and denied their motion to compel the disclosure of the documents in question. A smaller set of documents were not found to be privileged and are to be produced either in whole or with certain specified redactions.