Finance Firms to Comply With Disclosure Rules

Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said they had agreed to voluntarily meet certain corporate disclosure requirements, and, consequently, the Bush administration no longer would seek an end to the companies’ legal exemption from those rules.

Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill said the Treasury, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight will conduct a joint study on disclosure issues involving securities sold by the pair backed by pools of mortgages.

The agreement may lift a long-standing political cloud over the companies, which provide a secondary market for home mortgages. Some observers have long contended that Fannie and Freddie benefit from their status as government-sponsored enterprises and perception the government would never allow them to fail.