CNBC's Power Lunch: Regulation: What Will Work?
Washington, D.C., Of Counsel Michael Oxley, former Congressman, Chairman of the House Financial Services committee and co-author of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, appeared on the September 1, 2009, edition of CNBC's "Power Lunch" program. Oxley discussed the financial crisis that began a year ago and, moving forward, what financial regulation needs to be put in place to prevent another crisis in the future.
"The goal is to try to plug some of the holes in the regulatory structure," said Oxley, "particularly as it relates to accountability and, more importantly, to transparency. Whether it was over-the-counter derivatives, or other items that were essentially traded and acquired without any regulatory structure whatsoever."
Asked if he thought it was possible to put regulation in place to avoid another "meltdown" in the future, Oxley said, "I'm not sure you can. I think, surely, you can moderate it, or identify it earlier, in a lot of cases, but again it gets back to the transparency issue, where in fact, the over-the-counter derivatives market was so opaque . . . it seized up the entire marketplace. Clearly there are ways to deal with that, and the most effective way, in my estimation, is the transparency issue."
Click to watch the full interivew with Mr. Oxley from the CNBC website.