July 5th, 2013
We all know that the Dodd-Frank Act has imposed various restrictions on financial institutions since it’s passage in 2010. Today a myriad of bills have been created to fight back and impede the SEC from establishing regulations on said financial institutions. The most notable of these bills, the Retail Investor Protection Act, is from Congresswoman Ann Wagner; her bill would require the SEC to identify specific harm to investors before imposing new regulatory standards upon broker-dealers as well as prohibit the Department of Labor to issuing new fiduciary rules until 60 days after the SEC finalizes previous rules. Wagner argues that new SEC regulations could actually harm investors more than they would help them, which is why her bill requires the SEC to prove that its not “protecting investors” by merely limiting their options. One of the other bills formally introduced, the Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act, would exempt advisors to PE firms that are small enough from registering with the SEC, since they claim that SEC oversight could soak up available capital for investment and the PE industry does not pose systematic risk to the financial sector. Other introduced bills have been to repeal the requirement that publicly traded companies report executive compensation with the firm’s financial performance, and to bar the Public Company Accounting and Oversight Board from requiring firms to enlist a specific company for audit. Although these bills are still in committee, there is a chance that we see a slow overhaul of parts of the Dodd-Frank Act. This could indicate a slow-down in business for regulatory & compliance firms that were profiting off of the Dodd Frank regulations.
