Wal-Mart Official Lied to FDIC Officers About Bank Leases
First published by Reuters news service, May 9, 2006
Wal-Mart gave inaccurate testimony to U.S. regulators considering its application to open a bank, wrongly describing a provision of some leases signed by banks in its stores, according to leases obtained by Reuters.
The inaccuracy involves testimony Wal-Mart Stores Inc. gave to support its statement that it has no plans to replace community banks now in its stores with bank branches of its own.
Last month, the company told the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the agency reviewing Wal-Mart's application to start limited bank operations, that it has no plans to enter full-service banking, and it pointed to the leases signed by banks in its stores as evidence of its long-term plan to support independent banks.
Specifically, Wal-Mart told the FDIC that leases signed by banks were renewed at the discretion of the banks alone.
But documents seen by Reuters include a provision that requires both the bank and Wal-Mart to agree to renew.
According to industry sources, that provision is included in a handful, not all of the leases signed by Wal-Mart's bank tenants. Wal-Mart told Reuters it was an oversight and that the testimony it gave to the FDIC it had believed to be true.
© 2006 Reuters
Editor's note: After being caught lying, a Wal-Mart spokesperson said the following day that a majority of contracts allow the tenant banks to renew contracts unilaterally and claimed the Wal-Mart was planning to remove the power to opt out of contracts from itself.
See our huge collection of articles, studies, internal documents and more on Wal-Mart and big box stores.
Visit our Merchandise Page to see these stickers, buttons, and more.
Please help support this work -- make a tax-deductible donation to ReclaimDemocracy.org today!
Go to Home Page
We review dozens of articles and essays from both corporate and independent media sources each weeek and occassionally post those we believe offers unique or important information or perspectives relating to democracy and corporate power. Opinions presented do not necessarily reflect those of ReclaimDemocracy.org. Index of past features
Fair Use Notice
This site occasionally reprints copyrighted material, the use of which
has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner.
We make such material available free of charge in our efforts to advance understanding
of issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted
material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In
accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.. For more information go to: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html.
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes
of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission
from the copyright owner. Article titles here are not always those used by the originating publication.
