- Health Care Reform Legislation
- Financial Regulation Reform Legislation
- Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
- Wikileaks
2010
Occupy Wall Street- Death of Osama Bin Laden
2011
On May 6th, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped nearly 1,000 points within a few minutes, and then whipsawed back up. The SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s investigation found that a trader’s use of an algorithm to sell futures contracts precipitated a rapid decline across markets. The SEC approved curbs – including a pause in trading of any stock if it declined more than ten percent within a few minutes –to keep trading orderly in the event of extraordinary selling pressure.
In Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the Supreme Court upheld the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s creation of the PCAOB, as well as the method of appointing its board members. It agreed with the plaintiffs that the requirement that the SEC show good cause for removing board members was unconstitutional, and that board members served at the will of the SEC.
Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in July in response to the financial crisis that began in 2008. It granted the Federal government new authority to seize and wind down large troubled financial firms, established a council of Federal regulators to monitor threats to the financial system, and mandated oversight of the derivatives market. Shareholders received additional powers, including an advisory say in corporate executive compensation.
The Dodd-Frank Act established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to safeguard borrowers, and to create and enforce new rules governing mortgages and other financial products. President Obama appointed Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor with a long track record in consumer advocacy, as a special adviser to set up the bureau. The CFPB offically began its work in July 2011. Richard Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general and chief of CFPB's enforcement, was installed as its first director by President Obama, after his appointment was blocked by a Senate filibuster.
Deutsche Borse AG, operating the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, offered to purchase NYSE Euronext for $10 billion to create the world's largest exchange operator.
In July, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington overturned the 2010 SEC proxy-access rule, requiring shareholders' candidates on corporate boards to be listed on proxy ballots. The court rebuked the SEC for not fully analyzing the economic costs and benefits of the rule.
The SEC appealed a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff in rejecting a settlement with Citigroup over the bank's sale of mortgage-backed securities; the assets later defaulted with a loss to investors of nearly $700 million. The SEC claimed that the court was in error in requiring an admission of facts as a prerequisite for approving the settlement, instead of accepting the resolution - used by the SEC since the 1970s - in which the firm would neither admit nor deny wrongdoing.