Washington, D.C. (June 29, 2015) — The American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) today filed an amicus curiae brief (PDF) with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in MetLife, Inc. v. Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC).

ACLI states in its brief that it “fully endorses the legal arguments made by MetLife in its opposition and motion for summary judgment. MetLife demonstrates convincingly why the Council’s designation of MetLife as a systemically important financial institution (“SIFI”) was arbitrary and capricious; unsupported by the record, empirical fact, or economic logic; and contrary to law.”

ACLI offers two arguments in support of MetLife’s position.

“First, in important respects, the Council’s designation of MetLife failed to account for the fundamental differences between banks, on the one hand, and life insurance companies, on the other—differences that render the Council’s analysis unsound,” ACLI says.

“Second, the Council continues to predicate its designations of life insurance companies on a basic misunderstanding of existing state regulation of the life insurance industry. The Council was under a specific statutory duty to assess existing regulation of MetLife before subjecting it to additional federal regulation, 12 U.S.C. § 5323(a)(2)(H), but the Council breached that duty by failing to engage meaningfully with the state regulation system that has long governed the life insurance industry effectively,” ACLI says.

“For those reasons and others, this Court should order the Council to rescind MetLife’s SIFI designation.”

The American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) is a Washington, D.C.-based trade association with approximately 300 member companies operating in the United States and abroad. ACLI advocates in federal, state, and international forums for public policy that supports the industry marketplace and the 75 million American families that rely on life insurers’ products for financial and retirement security. ACLI members offer life insurance, annuities, retirement plans, long-term care and disability income insurance, and reinsurance, representing more than 90 percent of industry assets and premiums. Learn more at www.acli.com.