Large Financial Institutions The ''Living Wills'' Requirement and Economic Issues Associated with ''Too Big to Fail''

One of the chief objectives of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (DFA) is to promote financial stability within the United States, without the need for emergency governmental assistance to troubled firms. This book reviews the legal structure of the DFA's living will requirements; and examines some of the steps that these institutions might voluntarily take, which, in the view of the FRB and FDIC, would improve their resolvability, including strategic divestiture; legal reorganization; amendment of default trigger provisions of qualified financial contracts; and increasing their long-term, unsecured debt as a proportion of their assets.