AFR Letter: Oppose HR 3336
AFR sent a letter to members of congress urging them to oppose HR 3336, which would expand already generous regulatory exemptions for large financial entities.
AFR sent a letter to members of congress urging them to oppose HR 3336, which would expand already generous regulatory exemptions for large financial entities.
AFR sent a letter to the House urging members to oppose HR 3527, which would create unnecessary roadblocks to enforcement of derivatives oversight on big Wall Street banks and the financial services industry.
“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.”
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.
“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.
“H.R. 3283 would let U.S. banks trade derivatives, such as credit default swaps, overseas without having to build up any extra capital to protect against a meltdown in those derivatives. ‘This would create an overwhelming temptation to move swaps business overseas, indeed to the foreign jurisdictions where regulation was most lax compared to the U.S.,’ Americans For Financial Reform, a coalition of labor, consumer and other groups, wrote in a letter to the House today.”