NORTH CAROLINA BANKING INSTITUTE Volume 10 | Issue 1 Article 7 2006 Wachovia Bank, N.A. v. Burke: Preemption of State Law with Respect to National Bank Operations Subsidiaries Russell J. Andrew Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/ncbi Part of the Banking and Finance Law Commons Recommended Citation Russell J. Andrew, Wachovia Bank, N.A. v. Burke: Preemption of State Law with Respect to National Bank Operations Subsidiaries, 10 N.C. Banking Inst. 109 (2006). Available at: http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/ncbi/vol10/iss1/7 This Notes is brought to you for free and open access by Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in North Carolina Banking Institute by an authorized administrator of Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Notes and Comments Wachovia Bank, N.A. v. Burke: Preemption of State Law With Respect to National Bank Operating Subsidiaries I. INTRODUCTION With its roots grounded in the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, the preemption doctrine has been used by national banks for over 140 years to avoid following dozens of distinct sets of state banking regulations.' Currently, however, there is a growing national debate over the scope of preemption and the extent to which 2 national banks are authorized to preempt state laws. One area in particular where this debate is emerging is that of national bank operating subsidiaries. Are national banks operating subsidiaries, like their national bank parents, exempt from following 3 state regulations as a result of preemption? This was precisely the question presented to the U.S.