the United States, in July 2008, the failing IndyMac Bank was taken into administrative receivership by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and its assets and secured liabilities transferred to a specially established bridge bank called IndyMac Federal Bank, FSB which was placed into conservatorship, also by the FDIC. Again, in the U.S. at the federal level, in September 2008, the chief executive officers and board of directors of Fannie Mae and of Freddie Mac were dismissed. Then, the companies were placed into the conservatorship of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) via the determination of its director James B. Lockhart III, with the support and financial backing of U.S. Treasury via Treasury secretary Hank Paulson's commitment to keep the corporations solvent. The intervention leading to the conservatorship of these two entities has become the largest in government history, and was justified as necessary step to prevent the damage to the financial system that would have been caused by their failure. Entities like this are considered "too big to fail". An even more ambitious use of the conservatorship model has been proposed by Duke professors Lawrence Baxter, Bill Brown, and Jim Cox. They suggest that the troubled U.S. banks be placed in conservatorship, that some of their "good assets" be dropped into newly created "good bank" subsidiaries (presumably under new management), and the remaining "bad assets" be left to be managed under the supervision of a conservatorship structure. See also Legal guardian Power of attorney Receivership Custodial account Britney Spears conservatorship dispute References Further reading External links Montana Code Annotated 72-1-103(8) (2005) Example state law Court orders Legal professions Family law in the United States Insolvency