One of the reasons that the financial services industry is under pressure is because the government attacks its reputation constantly, and not always for good reasons. (To be fair, Mr. Stiroh noted both actual misconduct and a perception of a lack of trust.) With that in mind, consider the following observations: (i) most persons (including the government) tend to be less critical of themselves than of others, (ii) misconduct by government…

As Representative Garrett points out, the court's rejection of the SIFI designation of MetLife carries significance for not only the insurance industry, but also the asset management industry, since FSOC effectively has indicated its inclination to name asset managers as systemically significant.

The notion that asset managers are systemically significant seems questionable because they are not themselves large institutions measured by equity, but instead are only large insofar as…

The District Court's harsh rejection of FSOC's analysis of MetLife motivates a reexamination of that analysis and other commentary on it. One of the more detailed public reviews of FSOC's analysis was produced by Peter Wallison (see published in The Wall Street Journal on July 7, 2015). His specific criticism of the FSOC analysis, e.g., with respect to securities lending, is a reasoned indictment of FSOC's ability to understand the…

Given how much discretion the Dodd-Frank Act affords FSOC to create its own rules, the Court's finding that the FSOC failed to follow those rules is nothing less than embarrassing.

The decision casts doubt on whether FSOC and its closely related affiliate (also established by Dodd-Frank), the Office of Financial Research, (i) can provide any meaningful value and (ii) are really more political creatures than regulatory or academic entities. FSOC's annual reports on the…