--- title: "Cease and Desist Order: definition, formula, and thresholds" description: "A Cease and Desist Order is a formal supervisory action directing a bank to stop unsafe or unsound practices or violations of law. C&D orders may be contested or issued as consent orders; both carry the same legal force." canonical_url: https://www.bankregreports.com/glossary/cease-and-desist-order/ source: BankRegReports category: "Supervision & Ratings" units: "count" schedule: "Public enforcement databases" --- # Cease and Desist Order > A Cease and Desist Order is a formal supervisory action directing a bank to stop unsafe or unsound practices or violations of law. C&D orders may be contested or issued as consent orders; both carry the same legal force. ## Formula ``` Cease and desist orders are issued under 12 USC §1818(b). ``` Section 1818(b) authorizes the bank's primary federal regulator to issue a C&D order requiring the bank to stop specified practices and take affirmative corrective actions. The order may be contested in administrative hearings; in practice, most are issued as consent orders where the bank agrees rather than litigates. ## Why it matters C&D orders are the workhorse formal enforcement tool of US bank supervisors. They distinguish formal action (public, enforceable) from informal supervisory communication (MRAs, MOUs, private letters). The public C&D filing is what makes the supervisory concern visible to depositors, counterparties, and the market. ## How to read it C&D orders should be read for two key signals: the subject matter (operational, compliance, capital, governance) and the affirmative actions required. The more extensive the required actions and the broader the subject matter, the more fundamental the regulator's concern. A supervisory C&D order is not the same thing as a cease and desist letter, the private demand used in intellectual property and other civil disputes: the order is a legal action by a federal regulator, enforceable in court, and violating it can bring civil money penalties. ## Thresholds | Range | Reading | What it means | |---|---|---| | None | Clean record | No active formal action. | | Narrow C&D | Specific issue | Topic-specific concern. | | Broad C&D | Major concern | Multiple risk-management subjects. | | Contested C&D | Severe | Bank disagrees with the regulatory finding. | ## Worked example A 2023 FDIC C&D order against a mid-sized bank required (1) immediate cessation of specified deposit-acquisition practices, (2) restoration of compliance staffing, (3) third-party validation of risk-monitoring systems, and (4) quarterly board reporting on corrective progress. The order remained in effect through 2025. ## Questions ### Is a cease-and-desist order the same as a consent order? A consent order is a type of cease-and-desist order (issued under the same statutory authority) where the bank consents to the action rather than contesting it. Contested C&Ds are rare; the vast majority of formal enforcement actions are issued as consent orders. ### Who can issue a cease-and-desist order? The bank's primary federal regulator (OCC for national banks, FRB for state member banks and BHCs, FDIC for state non-member banks, NCUA for credit unions). State regulators have parallel authority for state-chartered institutions. ### How do I find C&D orders? Each agency publishes its enforcement actions in a public database: OCC Enforcement Actions Search, FDIC Enforcement Decisions, Federal Reserve Enforcement Actions. BankRegReports aggregates these into the /events/ section. ## Sources - 12 USC §1818(b): Federal cease-and-desist authority - Agency enforcement action databases (OCC, FRB, FDIC, NCUA) ## Related metrics - [Consent Order](https://www.bankregreports.com/glossary/consent-order/): A Consent Order is a formal public enforcement action where a bank agrees to specified corrective actions without admitting or denying alleged violations. Consent orders are the most common form of formal bank supervisory action. - [Enforcement Actions](https://www.bankregreports.com/glossary/enforcement-actions/): Enforcement actions are formal and informal measures bank regulators take against an institution or its officers: consent orders, cease-and-desist orders, civil money penalties, and written agreements. They are the public footprint of supervisory problems. - [Memorandum of Understanding](https://www.bankregreports.com/glossary/memorandum-of-understanding/): A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is an informal, non-public supervisory agreement between a bank and its regulator. MOUs are an intermediate step between informal supervisory communication and formal enforcement action. - [Civil Money Penalty](https://www.bankregreports.com/glossary/civil-money-penalty/): A Civil Money Penalty (CMP) is a monetary fine imposed by a bank regulator for violations of law, regulation, or supervisory agreement. CMPs can range from thousands to billions of dollars depending on the violation. ## About this document This is the markdown twin of the page named in `canonical_url` above. Source filings are public record; the cleaning, normalization, cross-source linkage, and derived metrics are BankRegReports' own. Attribute with a link to the canonical URL. Markdown twins are published for editorial content only. Institution data pages do not have them. For data at scale use the API, which is documented at https://www.bankregreports.com/api/ and specified at https://www.bankregreports.com/openapi.json. It returns typed JSON with explicit units and periods, and one call replaces hundreds of page fetches. ## Sitemap - [Glossary](https://www.bankregreports.com/glossary/): every metric, with formula and thresholds - [Blog](https://www.bankregreports.com/blog/): analysis and explainers - [API documentation](https://www.bankregreports.com/api/): the programmatic way to get this data - [XML sitemap](https://www.bankregreports.com/sitemap.xml): the complete crawlable index