Bailout

Global Financial Policy Makers Push Closer to the End of “Too Big to Fail” Banking Era

By Myriam Denis, J.D. Candidate 2016 | Posted on

An international group of financial policy makers, the Financial Stability Board (FSB), designed a framework seeking to keep 30 of the world’s biggest banks from becoming “too big to fail” and having to resort to taxpayers-backed bailouts in the event of a future financial crisis. The “too big to fail” conundrum refers to the government having to bail out big banks because letting them fail would inflict collateral damage too severe for the economy to recover.

The proposed rules would require these banks to maintain “capital buffers” capable of absorbing potential losses when a bank is failing, thus preventing the spreading of further pressure in the global banking system. Most of this buffer would come in the form of shareholders’ equity as well as long-term debt issued to investors. By making banks sell bonds explicitly exposed to losses, the risk would shift from the government to be borne by the banks’ investors, and taxpayer-funded bailouts would, in theory, no longer be necessary.

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Fed’s New Rule Aims To Stop “Too Big To Fail” Banks

By Xiaolin Ma, LL.M. Candidate 2016 | Posted on

On October 30, 2015, the Federal Reserve Board announced a new proposal to change banking requirements for certain banks. The proposal requires domestic global systemically important banks (GSIBs) and the U.S. operations of foreign GSIBs to meet a new long-term debt requirement, as well as a new “total loss-absorbing capacity,” or TLAC, requirement. Janet Yellen, the Federal Reserve chairwoman, said, “This is an important step toward ending the market perception that any banking firm is ‘too big to fail.”

“Too big to fail” refers to the notion that the government has to bail out the largest banks in economic catastrophes, since allowing them to fail would create a negative domino effect on the remainder of the economy. In the last financial crisis in 2008, the U.S. government dropped their oppositions to bailout soon after the Lehman Brothers collapsed and the global financial system was seriously affected. Such bailouts ultimately impose losses on the taxpayers rather than allocating responsibility for risky banking practices on the organizations themselves. Therefore, the post-crisis regulations, including but not limited to the Dodd-Frank Act, are aimed at making it safer to let a big bank die.

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HSBC’s $550 Million Dollar Mortgage Bond Settlement

By Omer Selamoglu, LL.M. Candidate 2015 | Posted on

After peaking in 2006, housing prices in the United States began to decline very swiftly – even more so than in the Great Depression. As prices fell 33 percent (they fell 31 percent during the Great Depression), homeowners realized that the value of their homes had become lower than their mortgage debt, and they lost their incentive to pay their mortgage balances. This led to foreclosures and short sales at unprecedented levels. Significantly, lost output—goods and services that we will never see—reached at least 40 percent of 2007 U.S. gross domestic product. 

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Banco Espírito Santo Bailout

By Nahal Bahri, J.D. Candidate 2015 | Posted on

After financial turmoil, the Portuguese bank, Banco Espírito Santo (“BES”), will be shut down and bailed out by a plan approved by the European Commission. Part of the bank will remain and continue to operate as Novo Banco; this bank will include healthy assets and senior debts. The troubled portion of BES will continue to house “shareholders and subordinated debtors who will be written down against the bad assets formed mainly of exposure to the rest of the Espírito Santo and to the bank’s Angolan unit.”

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New Compliance Regime For U.S. Banks: Asset-Based Leverage Ratios and Other Proposals

By Katya Mandzhieva, LL.M. Candidate 2014 | Posted on

The financial crisis generated concern that banks were taking excessive risks and they did not have adequate capital to run their operations. It was not clear if the existing Basel framework demonstrated weakness to contain the crisis or if it was the framework that led to the liquidity crisis and ultimately to the financial crisis. The U.S. government, through the Federal Reserve used funds under TARP to inject liquidity in the financial system. Even today the printing of money (quantitative easing) is going unabated to prop up the economy. Given this background, the regulation of banks has become increasingly important. Under the new Basel III requirements, U.S. regulators are requiring stronger leverage ratios for major U.S. banks. This would restrict banks to limit their borrowing and force them to fund their operations through equity.

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As Some of the Bailout Banks Recover, Taxpayers Start to See Some Payback

By Thiago Frazao, LL.M. Candidate 2014 | Posted on

Some recent news in the financial industry are indicating that bailout banks that received taxpayer money after the 2007-08 financial crisis may be starting to show signals of recovery and paying back some of the investments made by federal governments.

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Event Recap: Systemic Risk and the Financial Crisis

By Sreelekha Haridas Maruthur, LL.M. Candidate 2014 | Posted on

On February 25, 2014, the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy (BCLBE) hosted a lunchtime talk on Systemic Risk and the Financial Crisis by Prof. Steven L. Schwarcz. Prof. Schwarcz is a Professor of Law & Business at Duke University and is well known for his research and scholarship in the area of financial regulation and systemic risk.  In his lecture, Prof. Schwarcz focused on how regulations should address systemic risk – “the risk that the failure of financial markets or firms harms the real economy by increasing the cost of capital or decreasing its availability.”

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BCBLE Lecture Series: Eugene Ludwig on Putting Dodd-Frank in Context

By Yoona Kim, Class of 2016 | Posted on

On February 24, the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy (BCBLE) hosted a lunch presentation featuring Eugene Ludwig, founder and CEO of Promontory Financial Group. In his talk titled “Financial Regulation in the Post Reform Era: Putting Dodd-Frank in Context,” Ludwig shared his perspectives on the Dodd-Frank Act and other regulation efforts within the context of earlier cycles of crisis and reform. He discussed what the changes mean for the evolution of the American regulatory model and the transformative potential of the financial services industry. 

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U.S. Treasury May Exit GM, Realize $10 Billion Loss By Year-End

By Richard Andrews, J.D./M.B.A. Candidate, 2015 | Posted on

On Thursday, November 21, the U.S. Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”) announced its third major sale of General Motors (“GM”) common stock since the 2009 bailout, this time unloading 70.2 million shares. The sale, part of Treasury’s pre-defined written trading plan, further reduced Treasury’s GM holdings to 31.1 million shares, or approximately 2.2 percent of GM’s outstanding shares.

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