Dimon: Curbs Needed to Dodd-Frank Reach

Dimon: Curbs Needed to Dodd-Frank Reach

By Silla Brush and Emma Fidel on June 19, 2012

Congress and U.S. regulators should limit the international reach of Dodd-Frank Act swaps regulations, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) (JPM) Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said as he testified about at least $2 billion in losses on trades conducted by his bank in London.

“If JPMorgan overseas operates under different rules than our foreign competitors, we can no longer provide the best products and services to our U.S. clients or our foreign clients,” Dimon said yesterday at a House Financial Services Committee hearing on the losses. “The rules at the transaction level about margin reporting, all those requirements may enable Deutsche Bank to make the better deal.”

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the main derivatives regulator, is poised to propose guidance tomorrow that would extend swaps rules to foreign branches and subsidiaries of JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) (GS), Citigroup Inc. (C) (C) and other U.S. banks. The international reach of Dodd-Frank rules is among the most controversial elements of the derivatives-regulation overhaul and has led to two years of debate between regulators and financial-industry lobby groups.

Gary Gensler, CFTC chairman, has testified to Congress and delivered speeches calling for oversight of U.S. banks’ overseas operations.

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