401(k) plans may allow employees aged 50 or older to make elective deferrals over the annual limit; these deferrals are known as “catch-up” contributions.

In this alert, Winston’s Financial Services Industry Group takes a closer look at the OCC’s new stance on disparate impact liability and its implications for the financial services industry.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced on July 14, 2025, that it will cease supervising banks for disparate impact liability, instructing its examiners to “no longer examine for disparate impact.”[1] Accordingly, OCC examiners will not request, review, conclude on, or follow up on matters related to a bank’s disparate impact related risk, risk analysis, or assessment processes or procedures.[2] The OCC also removed references to disparate impact liability from its fair lending examination manual. 
This policy shift follows President Trump’s April 2025 executive order mandating the elimination of disparate impact liability across federal agencies and claiming that disparate impact liability forces companies to “engage in racial balancing to avoid potentially crippling legal liability.”[3] Given the Trump administration’s approach, the OCC’s policy shift is unsurprising. But the change means financial services companies should reconsider how they evaluate and address disparate impact risk, not only from the perspective of this revised federal regulatory lens, but also with the understanding that state attorneys general and private litigants will continue to pursue disparate impact claims as long as such claims remain legally viable. 
What does this mean to you and your clients? 

The Supreme Court just opened the doors to civil RICO suits against defendants alleged to have caused personal injury. This ruling could have major implications for product manufacturers and sellers, which may now face RICO claims—and treble damages—alongside traditional state-law claims in product-liability cases.