On April 21, the White House released a memorandum placing a reconsideration of the Dodd-Frank Act’s Orderly Liquidation Authority (OLA) on the administration’s agenda. The memorandum directs the Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, to review and report on the OLA within 180 days, focusing on whether the OLA might lead to excessive risk-taking by financial institutions, counterparties, and creditors; whether invoking the OLA could lead to losses for the U.S. Treasury; and whether the OLA comports with a February 3 executive order outlining the president’s principles for financial regulation. Additionally, the memorandum calls for an assessment of whether bankruptcy, under a Bankruptcy Code amended to accommodate financial institutions, would be a more effective method of resolving failed financial companies than the OLA.
President Trump’s memorandum parallels congressional efforts to amend the Bankruptcy Code, but it is not structurally identical. Earlier in April, the House passed H.R. 1667, the Financial Institution Bankruptcy Act (FIBA), which would amend the Code to facilitate a single-point-of-entry (SPOE) resolution in which only the top-tier holding company of a financial institution enters bankruptcy, while the operating subsidiaries continue running as normal and receive support from the top-tier holding company. Nearly identical versions of FIBA passed the House in 2016 and 2015. FIBA, as passed by the House, would not repeal title II of the Dodd-Frank Act. It would thus make two resolution systems available for financial institutions.
Representative Jeb Hensarling’s CHOICE Act, a sweeping package of proposed financial reforms, also incorporates the text of FIBA as it currently stands. The CHOICE Act, however, would also repeal title II, leaving FIBA as the single formal structure for resolving financial institutions.
(By Rebecca Green, Harvard Law School, J.D. 2017.)
For previous Roundtable posts on the resolution of financial institutions, see Jackson & Massman, “The Resolution of Distressed Financial Conglomerates“; Lubben & Wilmarth, “Too Big and Unable to Fail“; and “Senator Reed Introduces Bill to Assess Systemic Risk Impact of ‘Bankruptcy-for-Banks’ Reforms.”