The Trump administration's version of the Financial Stability Oversight Council may not automatically give life insurers what they want.
Lawyers for FSOC raised that possibility today in a document they filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The document is part of the long-running FSOC legal battle over whether MetLife Inc. is too important to fail.
President Donald Trump asked Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in April to conduct a 180-day review of FSOC's procedures for designating financial services companies as systemically important financial institutions.
(Related: Trump Issues Dodd-Frank Executive Order)
MetLife asked the appeals court to put its own SIFI case on hold, to give Mnuchin time to weigh in.
Instead of immediately supporting that request, lawyers for FSOC have asked the court to give FSOC 60 days to consider and respond to the request.
"We do not take a position at this time on MetLife's motion," the lawyers for FSOC write in their response to the motion.
Mark Stern, an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, filed the response on behalf of FSOC together with two department colleagues, Daniel Tenny and Nicolas Riley.
