Author: Bruce Grohsgal, Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones, LLP
Resolution of a distressed financial company under Dodd-Frank Title II is a last – but crucial – resort. Dodd-Frank, Title I, requires each large financial enterprise to file a “living will” that provides for its orderly resolution under the Bankruptcy Code. Dodd-Frank Title II may only be used to liquidate a failing financial company that would “pose a significant risk to the financial stability of the United States” if resolved in a bankruptcy proceeding or under other federal or state law. The FDIC must conduct a Title II resolution “in a manner that mitigates such risk and minimizes moral hazard.” Dodd-Frank also expressly prohibits both a taxpayer-funded bailout and the Federal Reserve’s lending to a failing or failed financial firm.
Dodd-Frank has drawn fire, nonetheless, as encouraging, rather than preventing, bailouts. Detractors urge repealing Title II of Dodd-Frank and amending the Bankruptcy Code to include a new Chapter 14 in its place.
The proposed Chapter 14’s central flaw is that it does nothing to reconcile Dodd-Frank’s purposes of mitigating systemic risk and minimizing moral hazard with the Bankruptcy Code’s starkly contrasting aims of reorganizing troubled companies, preserving going concerns and maximizing payments to creditors.
This article briefly summarizes Dodd-Frank’s orderly resolution regime and then addresses some of the core proposals for a new Chapter 14. It concludes that the proposed Chapter 14 will not mitigate systemic risk, minimize moral hazard, or improve on Dodd-Frank’s prohibitions against bailouts, which are the primary purposes of Title II of Dodd-Frank.
The article is available here.
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