The ball is now in the FDIC’s court on the topic of whether the agency has the right to unwind asset securitization deals once a bank that is a party to the deal goes bankrupt.

The agency, which announced a proposal to waive many of its rights of receivership in January, is sifting through the many letters that came in by last week’s comment deadline. Many letters were fired off by the banking community and a special task force of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) set up to deal with the controversial accounting standard dealing with securitization deals.

The letter from the AICPA’s ad hoc working group on Financial Accounting Standard 125, Accounting for Transfers and Servicing of Financial Assets and Extinguishments of Liabilities, came with an informal note from several attorneys indicating they were concerned that the agency’s promise to keep its hands off any securitized deals could come unglued. The worry is a future FDIC board could reverse what is now only a statement of policy by the current FDIC board, and further, the about-face might not grandfather existing deals. Given that, the note said, the attorneys cannot give an opinion that is satisfactory to the auditors. And the auditors really want to rely on counsel’s opinion before advising bankers if deals should receive sales treatment.

Bill Leiter, consultant to Banc One’s accounting department, said the AICPA’s letter reflects what a lot of major firms are concerned with in the FDIC policy. He said that the topic has been the talk among big bank accountants when they compare notes on major worries in the industry now.