Fed to release Wall Street crisis loan data

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- The Federal Reserve Board will release data on emergency loans made to Wall Street banks and others during the height of the financial crisis, after the Supreme Court refused Monday to side with banks who want the details kept secret.

Bloomberg LP, owner of Bloomberg News, had filed the lawsuit seeking details on a program that gave banks access to cheap loans in 2008. The Fed had originally refused to release the data, citing exemptions in open records laws for trade secrets.

A federal appeals court in New York ruled the media should have access to the loan data. A group of nation's banks appealed and asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop it. The high court refused to intervene with no comment.

The Fed says it will comply and reveal details of loans made to borrowers in 2008.

"The Board will fully comply with the courts' decisions and is preparing to make the information available," a Fed spokesman said. (No timetable for the release was immediately available.)

The spokesman noted that some of the information relating to emergency loans had already been released last year, under the Dodd-Frank Act on financial reform.

In December, the Fed reported it had made $9 trillion in overnight loans to major banks and Wall Street firms during the financial crisis.

The loans were made through a special loan program set up by the Fed in the wake of the Bear Stearns collapse in March 2008 to keep the nation's bond markets trading normally.