Volcker’s release sets stage for big fights

This week’s long-awaited issuance of a set of regulations known as the Volcker Rule marks just the beginning of major fights over a cornerstone of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Released Tuesday, the Volcker rule is meant to prohibit banks that get federal backing from engaging in risky speculative trading practices. The goal is to keep financial institutions from gambling with taxpayer money — a practice seen as helping to fuel the 2008 economic crisis. Five different regulatory agencies had to sign off on the language.

Now that it is out, banks and the nation’s growing ranks of compliance personnel are poring over the rule. Many observers expect a legal challenge from the financial industry.

“Meanwhile, regulators were on a collision course over who gets supremacy in enforcing the rule,” the Journal’s Ryan Tracy, James Sterngold and Stephanie Armour write.

Read the entire WSJ story here.