Transparency and Confidentiality in the Post Financial Crisis World - Where to Strike the Balance?

Harvard Business Law Review, Vol. 1, 2011

50 Pages Posted: 30 Jun 2011

See all articles by Margaret E. Tahyar

Margaret E. Tahyar

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

Annette L. Nazareth

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

Date Written: June 29, 2011

Abstract

Existing supervisors, as well as the new institutions that the Dodd-Frank Act created, collect and aggregate an unprecedented amount of commercially sensitive financial information. Although financial institutions and their supervisors are increasingly transparent in the post financial crisis era, some information that financial institutions provide regulators should be protected from disclosure. Untimely public disclosure of sensitive and competitive information- through FOIA requests, third-party subpoenas, or Congress- could undermine the goals of the Dodd-Frank Act by upsetting markets and making financial institutions reluctant to disclose data to the government voluntarily. The article argues that when it passed the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress, out of an understandable desire to promote transparency in the financial system, created an intolerable level of uncertainty as to whether information that regulators gather will be kept confidential. The article argues that regulators and Congress should act to strike a proper balance between transparency and confidentiality rather than allowing courts to determine the legally required level of disclosure in an unpredictable and ad hoc fashion.

Keywords: Dodd-Frank Act, FOIA

Suggested Citation

Tahyar, Margaret E. and Nazareth, Annette L., Transparency and Confidentiality in the Post Financial Crisis World - Where to Strike the Balance? (June 29, 2011). Harvard Business Law Review, Vol. 1, 2011, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1874731

Margaret E. Tahyar (Contact Author)

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP ( email )

United States

Annette L. Nazareth

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP ( email )

450 Lexington Ave.
New York, NY 10017
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
197
Abstract Views
1,049
Rank
278,639
PlumX Metrics