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BANK HOLDING COMPANY ACT OF 1956, AS AMENDED

(Chapter 240 70 Stat. 133, May 9, 1956)

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DEFINITIONS

SEC. 2. [12 U.S.C. 1841] (a)(1) Except as provided in paragraph (5) of this subsection, "bank holding company" means any company which has control over any bank or over any company that is or becomes a bank holding company by virtue of this Act.

(2) Any company has control over a bank or over any company if

(A) the company directly or indirectly or acting through one or more other persons owns, controls, or has power to vote 25 per centum or more of any class of voting securities of the bank or company;

(B) the company controls in any manner the election of a majority of the directors or trustees of the bank or company; or

(C) the Board determines, after notice and opportunity for hearing, that the company directly or indirectly exercises a controlling influence over the management or policies of the bank or company.

(3) For the purposes of any proceeding under paragraph (2)(C) of this subsection, there is a presumption that any company which directly or indirectly owns, controls, or has power to vote less than 5 per centum of any class of voting securities of a given bank or company does not have control over that bank or company.

(4) In any administrative or judicial proceeding under this Act, other than a proceeding under paragraph (2)(C) of this subsection, a company may not be held to have had control over any given bank or company at any given time unless that company, at the time in question, directly or indirectly owned, controlled, or had power to vote 5 per centum or more of any class of voting securities of the bank or company, or had already been found to have control in a proceeding under paragraph (2)(C).

(5) Notwithstanding any other provision of this subsection

(A) No bank and no company owning or controlling voting shares of a bank is a bank holding company by virtue of its ownership or control of shares in a fiduciary capacity, except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3) of subsection (g) of this section. For the purpose of the preceding sentence, bank shares shall not be deemed to have been acquired in a fiduciary capacity if the acquiring bank or company has sole discretionary authority to exercise voting rights with respect thereto; except that this limitation is applicable in the case of a bank or com"pany acquiring such shares prior to the date of enactment of

the Bank Holding Company Act Amendments of 1970 only if the bank or company has the right consistent with its obligations under the instrument, agreement, or other arrangement establishing the fiduciary relationship to divest itself of such voting rights and fails to exercise that right to divest within a reasonable period not to exceed one year after the date of enactment of the Bank Holding Company Act Amendments of 1970.

(B) No company is a bank holding company by virtue of its ownership or control of shares acquired by it in connection with its underwriting of securities if such shares are held only for such period of time as will permit the sale thereof on a reasonable basis.

(C) No company formed for the sole purpose of participating in a proxy solicitation is a bank holding company by virtue of its control of voting rights of shares acquired in the course of such solicitation.

(D) No company is a bank holding company by virtue of its ownership or control of shares acquired in securing or collecting a debt previously contracted in good faith, until two years after the date of acquisition. The Board is authorized upon application by a company to extend, from time to time for not more than one year at a time, the two-year period referred to herein for disposing of any shares acquired by a company in the regular course of securing or collecting a debt previously contracted in good faith, if, in the Board's judgment, such an extension would not be detrimental to the public interest, but no such extension shall in the aggregate exceed three years.

(E) No company is a bank holding company by virtue of its ownership or control of any State chartered bank or trust company which is wholly owned by thrift institutions and which restricts itself to the acceptance of deposits from thrift institutions, deposits arising out of the corporate business of its owners, and deposits of public moneys.

(F) No trust company or mutual savings bank which is an insured bank under the Federal Deposit Insurance Act is a bank holding company by virtue of its direct or indirect ownership or control of one bank located in the same State, if (i) such ownership or control existed on the date of enactment of the Bank Holding Company Act Amendments of 1970 and is specifically authorized by applicable State law, and (ii) the trust company or mutual savings bank does not after that date acquire an interest in any company that, together with any other interest it holds in that company, will exceed 5 per centum of any class of the voting shares of that company, except that this limitation shall not be applicable to investments of the trust company or mutual savings bank, direct and indirect, which are otherwise in accordance with the limitations applicable to national banks under section 5136 of the Revised Statutes. (12 U.S.C. 24)

(6) For the purposes of this Act, any successor to a bank holding company shall be deemed to be a bank holding company from the

date on which the predecessor company became a bank holding company.

(b) "Company" means any corporation, partnership, business trust, association, or similar organization, or any other trust unless by its terms it must terminate within twenty-five years or not later than twenty-one years and ten months after the death of individuals living on the effective date of the trust, but shall not include any corporation the majority of the shares of which are owned by the United States or by any State. "Company covered in 1970" means a company which becomes a bank holding company as a result of the enactment of the Bank Holding Company Act Amendments of 1970 and which would have been a bank holding company on June 30, 1968, if those amendments had been enacted on that date.

(c)"Bank" means any institution organized under the laws of the United States, any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, any territory of the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, or the Virgin Islands, except an institution the accounts of which are insured by the Federal Savings and loan Insurance Corporation or an institution chartered by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, which (1) accept deposits that the depositor has a legal right to withdraw on demand, and (2) engages in the business of making commercial loans. Such term does not include any organization operating under section 25 or section 25(a) of the Federal Reserve Act, or any organization which does not do business within the United States except as an incident to its activities outside the United States. "District bank" means any bank organized or operating under the Code of Law for the District of Columbia. The term "bank" also includes a State chartered bank or a national banking association which is owned exclusively (except to the extent directors' qualifying shares are required by law) by other depository institutions or by a bank holding company which is owned exclusively by other depository institutions and is organized to engage exclusively in providing services for other depository institutions and their officers, directors, and employees.

(d) "Subsidiary", with respect to a specified bank holding company, means (1) any company 25 per centum or more of whose voting shares (excluding shares owned by the United States or by any company wholly owned by the United States) is directly or indirectly owned or controlled by such bank holding company, or is held by it with power to vote; (2) any company the election of a majority of whose directors is controlled in any manner by such bank holding company; or (3) any company with respect to the management or policies of which such bank holding company has the power, directly or indirectly, to exercise a controlling influence, as determined by the Board, after notice and opportunity for hearing.

(e) The term "successor" shall include any company which acquires directly or indirectly from a bank holding company shares of any bank, when and if the relationship between such company and the bank holding company is such that the transaction effects no substantial change in the control of the bank or beneficial ownership of such shares of such bank. The Board may, by regulation

further define the term "successor" to the extent necessary to prevent evasion of the purposes of this Act.

(f) "Board" means the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

(g) For the purposes of this Act

(1) shares owned or controlled by any subsidiary of a bank holding company shall be deemed to be indirectly owned or controlled by such bank holding company;

(2) shares held or controlled directly or indirectly by trustees for the benefit of (A) a company, (B) the shareholders or members of a company, or (C) the employees (whether exclusively or not) of a company, shall be deemed to be controlled by such company; and

(3) shares transferred after January 1, 1966, by any bank holding company (or by any company which, but for such transfer, would be a bank holding_company) directly or indirectly to any transferee that is indebted to the transferor, or has one or more officers, directors, trustees, or beneficiaries in common with or subject to control by the transferor, shall be deemed to be indirectly owned or controlled by the transferor unless the Board, after opportunity for hearing, determines that the transferor is not in fact capable of controlling the transferee.

(h)(1) Except as provided by paragraph (2), the application of this Act and of section 23A of the Federal Reserve Act (12 U.S.C. 371), as amended, shall not be affected by the fact that a transaction takes place wholly or partly outside the United States or that a company is organized or operates outside the United States.

(2) The prohibitions of section 4 of this Act shall not apply to shares of any company organized under the laws of a foreign country (or to shares held by such company in any company engaged in the same general line of business as the investor company or in a business related to the business of the investor company) that is principally engaged in business outside the United States if such shares are held or acquired by a bank holding company organized under the laws of a foreign country that is principally engaged in the banking business outside the United States, except that (1) such exempt foreign company (A) may engage in or hold shares of a company engaged in the business of underwriting, selling or distributing securities in the United States only to the extent that a bank holding company may do so under this Act and under regulations or orders issued by the Board under this Act, and (B) may engage in the United States in any banking or financial operations or types of activities permitted under section 4(c)(8) or in any order or regulation issued by the Board under such section only with the Board's prior approval under that section, and (2) no domestic office or subsidiary of a bank holding company or subsidiary thereof holding shares of such company may extend credit to a domestic office or subsidiary of such exempt company on terms more favorable than those afforded similar borrowers in the United States.

(i) The term "thrift institution" means (1) a domestic building and loan or savings and loan association, (2) a cooperative bank without capital stock organized and operated for mutual purposes and without profit, (3) a mutual savings bank not having capital stock represented by shares or (4) a Federal savings bank.

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