Click here to view this week’s highlights and lowlights in Wall Street Reform – March 24, 2012 – March, 30, 2012. Please note: Compiling and distributing ‘This Week in Wall Street Reform’ will be in a period of transition in the coming weeks, so please bear
“On the eve of Tax Day, as millions of Americans are still struggling with hard times and worrying about how to pay the IRS, some of the most prominent players on Wall Street held a press conference announcing that they were stepping up to support a financial speculation tax to “pay their fair” share and help put America back to work.”
“It’s par for the course for the GOP-controlled House to pass bills that few people notice and that ultimately go nowhere. But it’s rare for legislators to join hands across the aisle to roll back parts of President Obama’s signature legislative achievements. That’s what happened on Monday, when the House passed two little-noticed bills that changed the derivatives rules under the Dodd-Frank Act. … But critics of the bills, like Americans for Financial Reform, believe that the legislation could make substantive changes to Dodd-Frank that would increase risk and instability in the marketplace.”
As most Americans struggle to pay their share, we can’t help but notice that Wall Street is not. Many of the economic problems we face today, from deficits to unemployment, were in large part created by reckless and excessive speculation on Wall Street. It is therefore
AFR sent a letter to the House voicing our strong opposition to HR 2586, the “Swaps Execution Facility Clarification Act”. HR 2586 would undermine a key element of derivatives reform – the attempt to create transparent, competitive markets for previously ‘dark’ over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives.
“The report was commissioned by Morgan Stanley, one of the big banks lobbying to ease the regulation. But IHS maintains its analysis, content and conclusions are entirely independent. …However, Americans for Financial Reform, an advocacy coalition supporting the legislation, took issue with the report. ‘This is just the latest in a series of industry-funded studies ordered up by financial market interests expressly to undermine the Volcker Rule,’ executive director Lisa Donner told CNBC in response to a question. ‘They don’t want to have to stop the profitable and risky proprietary trading that the Volcker rule bans, and they are grasping at straws to protect the status quo.’”
“In a March 27 letter to members of the committee, Americans for Financial Reform writes that the swaps bill, introduced last October by Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., chairman of the House Financial Services Subcomittee on Capital Markets, ‘would undermine’ the regulatory regime for derivatives laid out by Congress in the Dodd-Frank act ‘by exempting any derivatives transaction between a U.S. swap dealer and a non-U.S. entity from all the major protections contained in Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act,’ with the one exception being reporting requirements to regulators.”
“Also on Tuesday the Financial Services Committee approved a bill to limit the international reach of new U.S. swaps and derivative rules. …The group Americans for Financial Reform, a strong backer of Dodd-Frank, warned the bill would allow U.S. banks to evade oversight. ‘In addition to seriously undermining the basic transparency and accountability requirements in the U.S., such a ‘race to the bottom’ would be a serious blow to the entire international effort to make derivatives markets safer,’ the group said in a statement.”
AFR and CFA sent a join letter to the House urging members to vote NO on the final passage of the JOBS Act.
AFR sent a letter to the House this morning urging members to oppose HR 3283. HR 3283 would allow U.S. banks to evade Dodd-Frank derivatives regulation by dealing through their foreign subsidiaries. This could fatally undermine derivatives oversight.