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Bank lobbyists are setting their sights on the U.S. House of Representatives, hoping that the lower chamber will push the Senate to further relax regulatory oversight of larger banks, Reuters reported. The Senate looks set in coming months to pass the first revision of rules introduced following the 2007-2009 financial crisis, after Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) secured the necessary support from Democrats to advance a bill easing up on community lenders. The bill, which took months of bipartisan negotiations, proposes to raise the asset threshold at which banks are considered systemically risky and subject to stricter Federal Reserve oversight to $250 billion from $50 billion. Large banks, which so far stand to gain little from the Senate bill, are making their case for further rule changes to Republican lawmakers in the House, according to the sources.

The proposed Senate bill on bankruptcy venue reform makes a simple and straightforward promise to require companies to file for chapter 11 protection in the court closest to their principal place of business. But several corporate bankruptcy lawyers said that it is the bill’s last 142 words that would make the proposal, if enacted, actually work, according to a WSJ Pro Bankruptcy commentary*. The final passage in the Jan. 8 proposal aims to end the long and expensive courtroom battles that have erupted over proper venue. Specifically, it instructs judges to make a decision on a venue transfer request within 14 days of the initial request for a move by parties objecting to the chosen venue. Read more.

*The views expressed in this commentary are from the author/publication cited, are meant for informative purposes only, and are not an official position of ABI.

The House Financial Services Committee will continue its mark-up today of 15 pieces of legislation, including bills looking to roll back financial regulations established after the Great Recession. Click here  to view the legislation and to view an archived webcast of the first part of the mark-up that took place yesterday.

The most significant attempt to loosen rules imposed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis is underway in Congress as the Senate looks to pass legislation within the next month that would roll back restrictions on swaths of the finance industry, the New York Times reported. The Trump administration and Republican lawmakers have now set their sights on helping the financial industry, which has been engaged in a quiet but concerted push to relax many post-crisis rules and regulatory obligations, particularly for thousands of small- and medium-sized banks. But unlike the $1.5 trillion tax overhaul, which passed along party lines, the effort to loosen the post-crisis rules is somewhat bipartisan. A group of Senate Democrats has joined Republicans to support legislation that would mark the first major revision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. The bill would allow hundreds of smaller banks to avoid certain elements of federal oversight, including stress tests, which measure a bank’s ability to withstand a severe economic downturn. Under current law, banks with assets of $50 billion or more are considered “systemically important financial institutions” and therefore governed by stricter rules. The bill would raise that threshold to institutions with assets of $250 billion or more, leaving fewer than 10 big banks in the U.S. subject to the stricter oversight. Banks with assets of $50 billion to $100 billion would be immediately freed from those requirements. Financial institutions with $100 billion to $250 billion in assets, such as BB&T and American Express, would no longer be subject to tougher rules after 18 months, although the Federal Reserve would retain the authority to periodically conduct stress tests on those firms.