Federal regulators Friday promised intensified enforcement action against lawyers, accountants, appraisers and other professionals who contributed to the collapse of savings and loan associations across the country.

"No more vital question could be posed . . . (than) where were the professionals?" Harris Weinstein, chief counsel for the Office of Thrift Supervision, said at a news conference.OTS officials said that their efforts to punish the misdeeds of professionals were given a big boost by a federal court ruling Thursday upholding the government's seizure last year of Lincoln Savings & Loan of Irvine, Calif.

In denying efforts by Charles H. Keating Jr. to regain control of the S&L, U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin complained that lawyers and accountants approved numerous "clearly improper transactions" that contributed to Lincoln's $2 billion collapse.

Although the judge's ruling applies strictly to the Lincoln case, OTS officials believe that the scathing criticism by Sporkin, a respected jurist and former enforcement chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission, will influence the legal and regulatory climate.

"I'm very pleased Judge Sporkin has identified an area which has concerned me since the day I walked into this job," said OTS Director T. Timothy Ryan Jr.

Sporkin, he said, "states our view, which you will see reflected in enforcement actions."

OTS officials said that the agency is conducting many detailed investigations that could lead to imposition of substantial fines or the banning of lawyers and accountants from representing S&Ls before the regulatory agency.

Other federal agencies have filed damage suits against lawyers and accountants who represented S&Ls that collapsed into insolvency and were seized by the federal government. Those suits seek financial damages.

But the OTS could go significantly farther in punishing professional misdeeds. The agency can bring enforcement actions to bar individuals or groups from all S&L business by prohibiting them from representing any federally insured thrift.

The professionals - lawyers, accountants, appraisers and economists - must share significant blame "in a great many thrift failures," Weinstein said. "We expect to move against those professionals in a vigorous way."

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Weinstein declined to discuss whether OTS is considering action against lawyers and accountants involved with Lincoln S&L. But he said Keating, chairman of Lincoln's parent firm, "and his colleagues with the cooperation and assistance of their service providers, abused depositors and the American taxpayers to the tune of tens of millions of dollars."

Weinstein said that professionals played an important role in Lincoln's misdeeds: Accountants treated sham transactions as real sales, and lawyers threatened personal damage suits against federal regulatory officials to inhibit them taking action against the troubled S&L.

"In this case, what was done couldn't have been done without the help of the professionals," Weinstein said. "Highly sophisticated transactions are very unlikely to be done without the assistance of professionals."

The collapse of Lincoln, which was burdened by a portfolio of bad real estate investments, will ultimately cost taxpayers $2 billion. The figure includes expenses associated with paying off depositors, whose accounts are insured up to $100,000, and selling unprofitable assets.

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