Regulatory reform

After months of fighting, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities Exchange Commission appear to have won a significant victory in their battle for more authority over credit derivatives. The new plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to regulate derivatives, including the infamous credit-default swaps, gives oversight power to the CFTC and the SEC and largely ignores the Federal Reserve Board, which had been angling for a slice of power.

The Senate Banking Committee is holding a hearing on how to regulate institutions that are too big to fail. The first panel, on which Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chariman Sheila Bair and Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Gary Stern testified, addressed the timing and composition of a systemic resolution authority. Now the second group of witnesses has assembled at the table.