The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Pub.L. 111-203, H.R. 4173) is a federal statute in the United States that was signed into law by President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010.[1] The Act is a product of the financial regulatory reform agenda of the Democratically-controlled 111th United States Congress and the Obama administration.
The law was initially proposed on December 2, 2009, in the House by Barney Frank, and in the Senate Banking Committee by Chairman Chris Dodd. Due to their involvement with the bill, the conference committee that reported on June 29, 2010,[1] voted to name the bill after the two members of Congress.[2] The Act, which was passed as a response to the late-2000s recession, is the most sweeping change to financial regulation in the United States since the Great Depression,[3][4][5][6] and represents a paradigm shift in the American financial regulatory environment impacting all Federal financial regulatory agencies and affecting almost every aspect of the nation's financial services industry.[7][8]