Firms That Fought Dodd-Frank May Profit Under Republican House – Bloomberg

Firms That Fought Dodd-Frank May Profit Under Republican House

By Clea Benson and Phil Mattingly, Bloomberg

Republicans will try to rein in regulators implementing a sweeping overhaul of financial rules and press for a smaller federal role in the mortgage market as they return to a majority in the House of Representatives and a stronger minority in the Senate.

Taking control of the House and bolstering their position in the Senate will increase Republicans’ sway over the direction and independence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and over any technical fixes Congress makes in rules governing the trading of derivatives. Networks projected that Republicans won the seats needed to claim a majority of the House.

Republicans say they will use the House Financial Services Committee to ensure that regulators such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the new consumer protection bureau do not write rules that lawmakers consider too restrictive on the banking industry.

“We don’t want them to regulate capriciously, arbitrarily, without engaging in a cost-benefit analysis,” Representative Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican on the panel, said in an interview before the election.

A slowdown in rule making or added pressure on regulators may benefit companies such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp., which lobbied against portions of the Dodd-Frank law and predicted the measure would hurt their financial results.

President Barack Obama called attention to the Republican agenda in his weekly radio and Internet address Oct. 23, saying House and Senate members “are now beating the drum to repeal all of these reforms and consumer protections.”

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