The Obama administration has delivered a mixed verdict to the U.S. Supreme Court on California's financial privacy law, which lets consumers keep banks from sharing information with affiliated companies about their savings accounts or buying habits.

The 2004 law conflicts with federal regulation and should have been overturned by a lower court, Justice Department lawyers told the justices in a written filing. That largely agrees with banks and with the position the government took under President George W. Bush.

But the Obama administration agreed with the state and consumer groups that the California law is not imposing hardships on banks and that the high court should stay out of the case and leave the law in place.

Read more about American Bankers Association v. Brown, 08-730 in the San Francisco Chronicle.