By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) -Capital One sued the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, accusing the U.S. regulator of imposing an excessive $474.1 million special assessment to recoup losses to its deposit insurance fund following the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in 2023.
According to a complaint filed on Wednesday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, the FDIC incorrectly counted $56.2 billion of positions between two Capital One subsidiaries as uninsured deposits, improperly inflating the assessment by $149.2 million.
The sixth-largest U.S. commercial bank said the FDIC “persists in seeking to collect a special assessment based on its erroneous calculation,” despite two years of communications showing its math is wrong.
Capital One, based in McLean, Virginia, said the dispute is at an impasse, and a judge should declare that it does not owe the $149.2 million plus daily penalties for nonpayment.
Capital One estimated in July that it may need to set aside an additional $200 million for the matter.
FDIC spokesman Brian Sullivan declined to comment on Thursday. Capital One also declined to comment.
Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank were seized by the FDIC in March 2023, prompting fears of a replay of the 2008 global banking crisis. Another large bank, First Republic Bank, failed in May 2023.
As of June 30, the FDIC estimated it would recover $18.6 billion from 111 banks through a special assessment for the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failures. Banks with less than $5 billion of assets are not subject to the assessment.
The FDIC sued 17 former Silicon Valley Bank executives and directors in January, seeking billions of dollars for alleged gross negligence and breaches of fiduciary duty. That case remains pending.
The case is Capital One NA v FDIC, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia, No. 25-01515.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
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