The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will soon be the law of the land, assuming Senate passage. With the President’s signature, the bill will mark the greatest legislative change to financial supervision since the 1930s.

This legislation will affect every financial institution that operates in this country, many that operate from outside this country and will also have a significant effect on commercial companies. As a result, both financial institutions and commercial companies must now begin to deal with the historic shift in U.S. banking, securities, derivatives, executive compensation, consumer protection and corporate governance that will grow out of the general framework established by the bill. While the full weight of the bill falls more heavily on large, complex financial institutions, smaller institutions will also face a more complicated and expensive regulatory framework. This memorandum, written by a broad cross-specialty team of derivatives, bank regulatory, broker-dealer, funds, corporate governance and executive compensation teams at Davis Polk, summarizes the major provisions of the bill in bullet point form. For those who would like to dip into only the sections relevant to them, the table of contents contains hyperlinks. The accompanying Davis Polk Regulatory Implementation Slides are designed to show the effectiveness and implementation timeline of these provisions.

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