DEARBORN, Mich. — At long last the $1.8 billion DFCU Financial FCU has announced it will allow members to examine documents pertaining to its failed bid to become a mutual bank. But any members who do so will have to sign an agreement that they will not talk about what they have seen with anyone else who has not also signed the same agreement.

The issue of whether members of the CU can see records of board discussions and meetings leading up to the vote to seek to become a mutual bank was a key issue in the recent federal lawsuit between some of the members and the CU. Judge Lawrence Zatkoff declined to hear the case, citing jurisdictional issues, but in his comments during oral arguments signaled his sympathy with the members' position.

The penalties for talking about whatever might be found in the records are stiff. "I acknowledge and agree that money damages would not be a sufficient remedy for any breach of this letter by me," the agreement reads, adding "that DFCU shall be entitled to equitable relief including, without limitation, injunction and specific performance as a remedy of any breach by me of this letter agreement," the document reads.