Legality of Fed Bear Stearns Bailout Challenged

A housing and fair lending activist group has challenged the legality of the Federal Reserve's quick approval of financing for Bear Stearns via JPMorgan Chase, questioning the Fed's authority to approve the deal because it involves a non-bank institution.

Inner City Press Community on the Move, in a complaint filed with the Fed late Saturday, called the central bank's brokering of the deal "entirely illegal" and anticompetitive, and questioned whether sufficient Fed members had voted for it.