“Private equity and hedge funds now wield enormous influence over the American economy, often with terrible consequences for workers and communities,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, one of the groups backing the bill, in a statement.
“He was at the center of the industry effort to undo Dodd-Frank in the back rooms, and in terms of intimidating regulators and overturning important parts of it, he had a lot of success,” recalled Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, a group that supports the law.
“Most of the rules that were costing industry a lot of money, he was the lead on trying to overturn them,” Stanley added.
“Private equity and hedge funds now wield enormous influence over the American economy, often with terrible consequences for workers and communities,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform. “We need effective rules of the road to stop predatory practices by these Wall Street giants.”
Briefing on Stop Wall Street Looting Act of 2019 will be at 3pm ET. To join call RSVP to Kyra Sadovi, kyra@ourfinancialsecurity.org and dial (800) 230-1096 and ask for “Private Equity Legislation” conference call.
Over 15 major public interest groups have signed on to support the Stop Wall Street Looting Act of 2019, which was introduced today in the House and Senate.
The Stop Wall Street Looting Act would curb the worst abuses of Wall Street private equity executives by making them liable for damage they cause, protecting the interests of workers, preventing looting of target companies, and improving transparency for investors.
Consumer advocates criticized Ms. Kraninger’s invitation to financial companies. “Americans don’t need the main federal consumer protection agency partnering with the financial services industry to conduct studies,” said Linda Jun, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform. “Americans need a strong CFPB that actually polices the industry from doing harm.”
The AFR Education Fund sent a statement for the record to the House Financial Services Committee concerning Facebook’s proposal for the Libra digital token and payment system. The statement describes ways in which Facebook is attempting to create an unregulated financial product of potentially global scale and the dangers this would pose to the users of the token and the broader financial system.
AFR wrote a letter to the Federal Reserve Board on a proposal that would liberalize the criteria the Board uses to determine control of a bank. The definition of “control” is critical as it determines whether entities with ownership and influence over banks will be designated as bank holding companies and subject to the appropriate regulation.
Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, said that there is a widespread feeling that the MSRB is dominated by insiders to a degree that is “greater than is healthy for a self regulatory organization. Reforms are called for and I’m glad that Sen. Kennedy is stepping forward to do that.”
He said he sees bipartisan interest in the bill because people have interest in federal regulation in the municipal markets.
“We’ve seen blowups in the muni markets that have really affected cities and public entities across the country,” Stanley said, referencing Detroit and Puerto Rico.