Dodd-Frank Archives - Page 12 of 17 - Americans for Financial Reform

AFR in the News: Republican Assault on Dodd-Frank Act Intensifies (Financial Times)

“Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, which backs tougher regulation of Wall Street, said banks and their Republican allies were seeking to chip away at Dodd-Frank with a series of piecemeal delays and limits on regulatory authority. ‘The strategy is to take many of these bills and amendments and combine them together into packaged legislation. In combination, these so-called technical fixes will very significantly undermine Dodd-Frank and make it impossible to effectively police the financial sector,’ he said.”

AFR in the News: In New Congress, Wall St. Pushes to Undermine Dodd-Frank Reform (NY Times)

“The financial industry has been methodical, drafting technically complicated legislation that can pass the heavily Republican House with a few Democratic votes. And then, once approved, Wall Street has pushed to tack such measures on to larger bills considered too important for the White House to block. ‘This all works together: Put it up for stand-alone vote, get some Democrats on it, and then when you push it onto a must-pass bill, say it’s a bipartisan bill that’s already passed,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform.

AFR in the News: Kicking Dodd-Frank in the Teeth (NY Times)

“We’re going to see repeated attempts to go in with seemingly technical changes that intimidate regulators and keep them from putting teeth in regulations,” predicted Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform… “If we return to the precrisis business as usual, where it’s routine for people to accommodate Wall Street on these technical changes, they’re just going to unravel the postcrisis regulation piece by piece.”

How Does a Do-Nothing Congress Occupy Its Time?

This week, with Congress’s most unproductive session in modern memory nearing an end, the House of Representatives will take up an array of measures to deregulate Wall Street – measures for which there is close to zero voter support. If all goes according to its leaders’ plans, the House will debate and approve three separate legislative packages containing dozens of proposals to reverse or impede the financial reforms adopted after the 2008 crisis, or to throw procedural roadblocks of a broader kind in the way of the already slow process of adopting financial as well as health, safety and environmental regulations.

AFR in the News: U.S. Bank Bonus Curb Hit by Regulatory Squabble (Financial Times)

Americans for Financial Reform, Gina Chon of the Financial Times reports, “will soon send a letter to the agencies – it will also be circulated among lawmakers – urging them to finalise the proposal and strengthen it by not leaving implementation up to a bank’s board or management.” The article quotes AFR’s Marcus Stanley, who describes the executive-compensation provision as “one of the major pieces of unfinished business in Dodd-Frank.”

AFR in the News: Banks Push to Delay Rule on Investments (Wall Street Journal)

“Banks are pressing U.S. policy makers for a multiyear delay of a rule requiring them to sell investments in private-equity and venture-capital funds…,” the Journal reports. The article goes on to cite critics of the calls for delay, including AFR’s Marcus Stanley. “This is supposed to be a regulatory option in special circumstances,” he told the Journal. “It’s not supposed to be an automatic permission for every bank to get a 12-year period after passage of Dodd-Frank to divest from venture funds.”

AFR in the News: Ignore the Naysayers – Dodd-Frank Reforms Are Finally Paying Off

“This past year has seen significant advances on key issues of financial reform,” Mike Konczal writes in The New Republic, and “the issues where regulators are reluctant to take strong action are becoming increasingly apparent.” His article goes on to quote AFR Policy Director Marcus Stanley on the failure to “ban incentive pay that encourages inappropriate risk-taking, impose appropriate limits on the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending powers, bring real accountability to the credit rating agencies, and simplify the structure of global Wall Street mega-banks to ensure that they can be resolved safely.”

Wall Street Regulation Needs to be Tougher, Americans Overwhelmingly Agree

Nearly five years after the financial crisis, a new national poll – conducted on behalf of Americans for Financial Reform and the Center for Responsible Lending – shows continued bipartisan support for tougher regulation of the financial industry and its products and services. A sweeping majority of voters (78%) believe that financial rules and enforcement need to be strengthened, and that Wall Street’s bad practices have not changed enough.

Witnesses Support Operation Choke Point and Oppose House Measures to Impede Financial Rulemaking

Testifying before a House Financial Services subcommittee on July 15, Lauren Saunders of the National Consumer Law Center warned against measures that “would undermine important efforts underway at the Department of Justice and banking regulators designed to ensure that banks do not facilitate illegal activity.”

AFR in the News: How Obama Can Rein in Wall Street Without Going Through Congress

“Wall Street’s relentless lobbying campaign pressured regulators to dial down some of the reforms, but the overhaul law still has a lot of strength,” Danielle Douglas writes in the July 3rd Washington Post. Her article goes on to quote AFR policy director Marcus Stanley: “The regulators have the statutory authority,” he says. “The question is whether they are going to use that authority.”