Conover

MEMORANDUM OF OPINION AND ORDER

This action for injunctive and declaratory relief challenges two rulings by defendant Comptroller of the Currency (“the Comptroller”) approving proposals by two national banks to establish collective investment funds for individual retirement account (“IRA”) trust assets exempt from taxation under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”), 26 U.S.C. § 408 . Plaintiff is a national association of open-end investment companies and their investment advisers and principal underwriters. It claims that the rulings authorize defendants Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (“Wells Fargo”), and Bank of California, N.A. (“Bankcal”), to create what amount to mutual funds in violation of the prohibition against the marketing of securities by commercial banks in the Glass-Steagall Banking Act of 1933 (“Glass-Steagall”), ch. 89, 48 Stat. 162 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 12 U.S.C.). Defendants respond that the approved programs establish not mutual funds but common trust funds which do not violate Glass-Steagall and which are, in any case, expressly authorized by ERISA. Defendants also argue that plaintiff lacks standing to bring this action. There…