Anchor Savings Bank, FSB v. United States

BRYSON, Circuit Judge.

This is one of the last of the “Winstar ” cases arising out of the savings and loan crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s. See United States v. Winstar Corp., 518 U.S. 839, 116 S.Ct. 2432, 135 L.Ed.2d 964 (1996). During those years, high interest rates and inflation placed hundreds of savings and loan institutions, or “thrifts,” in severe financial distress. In order to prevent the thrifts’ collapse and the resulting burden on the federal government, which insured many of the thrifts’ depositors, the government developed a plan to induce healthy financial institutions…