Hunting the Next Bear Stearns
Jacob "Jack" Lew, U.S. Treasury secretary, speaks to the media during a visit to Alcoa's Davenport Works facility in Riverdale, Iowa, on Tuesday, July 29, 2014.
Photographer: Daniel Acker/BloombergA council of U.S. regulators led by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is going to tell companies sooner when it's assessing whether the companies should be labeled critical to the smooth functioning of the financial system, a badge they're resisting because it means they'll be subjected to Federal Reserve oversight.
The change was approved yesterday by the Financial Stability Oversight Council, an alphabet soup of banking and market regulators, including the FDIC and SEC, that was formed after the 2008 financial crisis. It means the fighting between companies and regulators is going to start earlier. The council, or FSOC, will notify companies when it is analyzing them in the second stage of review, possibly months earlier than they are now, in the third and final stage.