Next Stop for Dodd-Frank Might Be the Courts

In the same week that Rep. Barney Frank announced that he will not seek re-election to Congress, the landmark regulatory law that bears his name is under renewed fire.

According to Politico, a new wave of lawsuits is poised to tear down the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act or dilute it of any real power.

Key graffs from Politico:

"There's a whole future of court challenges out there," Harvard University law professor Hal Scott said during a recent panel sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the winning plaintiffs in the circuit court ruling.

Scott said the goal should be to reduce the costs of new regulations, dismissing critics who say it's tough to put a price on the benefits of rules meant to stop a repeat of the 2008 meltdown that has left almost 14 million Americans jobless.

These are tough times for Dodd-Frank. GOP candidates may not agree on who is the front-runner but all agree that one of their first efforts upon reaching the Oval Office is to outlaw the 17 month-old law.

The SEC has taken some hits recently. Along with having their budget tightened by a GOP-controlled House of Representatives and weak Democrat-controlled Senate, the regulatory agency was on the receiving end of a District of Columbia circuit court ruling that stated that the SEC "acted arbitrarily and capriciously here because it neglected its statutory responsibility to determine the likely economic consequences" of the newly enacted rule.

This week a US district judge knocked down a $285 million deal between Citigroup and the SEC, stating that the deal was "neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest."

Last week a guest commentator on Neil Cavuto's show on Fox Business railed against the latest round of bank stress tests, calling them a waste of time and effort.

Given a weak economy, high unemployment and uncertainty from Europe, the illusion of tight Wall Street oversight might be waning. While the protesters of Occupy Wall Street rail against capitalism and the rewards of the top 1%, the law that was meant to stop banks from being too big to fail might just fail itself.