• The Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act (FIRREA) is a 1989 law passed in response to a series of savings and loan bankruptcies in the 1980s. The law provides for a comprehensive regulatory and enforcement framework that sets higher minimum capital requirements and sets stricter performance standards for all savings institutions. Among other provisions, FIRREA establishes a three-tier scale of civil monetary penalties that can be applied to institutions, their directors and officers for breach of fiduciary duties. FIRREA also empowers regulators to disapprove the appointment of any director or senior executive by a troubled savings institution, and to fire or remove any director or officer found guilty of certain specified acts. FIRREA also holds directors and officers of savings institutions personally liable for monetary damages resulting from civil actions brought by regulators in cases of gross negligence.