Nine public interest organizations sent a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, asking the agency to reject the Carlyle Group, L.P.’s attempt to insert forced arbitration language into its registration statement for its initial public offering. The inserted language both limits shareholders’ rights and weakens the agency’s oversight abilities.
AFR submitted a comment letter to the FDIC, OCC, and Federal Reserve Board in response to their joint request for comment on new rules replacing the use of credit ratings in setting capital requirements for debt and securitization positions held by banks.
AFR sent a letter to members of Congress asking that they oppose HR 3461, the “Financial Institutions Examinations Fairness and Reform Act.” This legislation would tilt the playing field further in the direction of industry interests and tie the hands of regulators attempting to protect the public interest.
AFR signed onto a comment letter to the CFPB with 21 organizations recommending that they expand their excellent proposal to create a public database for credit card complaints to include actual complaint narratives, and suggestions to make it easier for researchers and the public to access the data as a pre-purchase tool to avoid problems and to help identify where troubling trends lie.
(Comments drafted by Consumer Action)
Click here to view this week’s highlights and lowlights in Wall Street Reform – January 21, 2012 – January 27, 2012.
“Asked to evaluate Cordray’s performance, John Carey, spokesman for the consumer coalition called Americans for Financial Reform, said: ‘There are reasons that Director Cordray received a wide range of support, across the political spectrum, from those that know and worked with him in Ohio. He is fair, tough and thoughtful, and those traits were on full display yesterday.’”
“Nearly two dozen professors and groups have joined the effort. Bank of America, the Fed and the Treasury declined to comment on the planned petition. …the letter was distributed on a list-serve for a coalition called Americans for Financial Reform…”
“‘It is specious to the point of misleading to suggest that the needs for liquidity currently provided by banks will not be filled,’ Wallace Turbeville, who represented Americans for Financial Reform, a nonprofit group that favors new restrictions on Wall Street risk-taking, told a Congressional committee this month.”
Read our letter to members of Congress urging them to reject HR 1840, 2779, 2586, 2682, and 3527, a series of derivatives bills in the House Agriculture Committee that would severely weaken regulation.
AFR sent a letter to SEC Chairman, Mary Schapiro indicating our objection to the SEC’s decision to delay implementation of Section IX of Dodd-Frank. This will result in the delay of corporate governance and executive compensation reforms necessary to the public interest.