来源：《华盛顿邮报》
原文刊登日期：2023年6月24日
The regional bank crisis that shocked the financial world this spring, which saw three of the largest bank failures in U.S. history, is still playing out, as consumers find it harder to get loans. Preventing a similar crisis should be top on Congress’s to-do list. So it is encouraging that lawmakers appear poised to adopt, in a bipartisan manner, a modest yet worthwhile measure to discourage future bank failures by making it easier for federal regulators to claw back pay from reckless executives.
今年春季震惊金融界的地区性银行危机仍在继续，因为消费者发现更难获得贷款。这场危机见证了美国历史上三个最大的银行倒闭事件。防止类似的危机应该是国会的首要任务。因此，令人鼓舞的是，立法者似乎准备以两党合作的方式，采取一项温和但有价值的措施，使联邦监管机构更容易从鲁莽的高管那里收回薪酬，从而阻止未来的银行倒闭。
The bill — dubbed the Recoup Act (short for Recovering Executive Compensation from Unaccountable Practices) — passed 21-2 out of the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday. Pushed by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the legislation would enable the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to strip bonuses and stock compensation that executives took in the two years before a bank’s failure and impose on them up a fine of up to $3 million.
周三，参议院银行委员会以21比2的投票结果通过了这项被称为“弥补法案”的法律。在俄亥俄州民主党参议员谢罗德•布朗和南卡罗来纳州共和党参议员蒂姆•斯科特的推动下，该法案将使联邦存款保险公司能够剥夺高管在银行倒闭前两年获得的奖金和股票薪酬，并对他们处以最高300万美元的罚款。
The penalties would only apply to a failed bank’s senior executives. Leaders at community banks with less than $10 billion in assets would not be subject to the clawbacks. Very few executives are likely to face them. But, had the policy been in place over the past year, it could have added a measure of accountability to the FDIC’s rescue of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank, each of which had more than $100 billion in assets when it went down. It also might have encouraged executives to think more carefully about the risks they took with their banks’ balance sheets.
这些处罚只适用于倒闭银行的高级管理人员。资产规模在100亿美元以下的社区银行的管理人员将不受收回条款的约束。可能会面临这样处罚的高管不多。但是，如果这项政策在过去一年就开始实施，它本可以在FDIC救助硅谷银行、签名银行和第一共和银行的行动中增加一项问责措施，这三家银行倒闭时的资产都超过了1000亿美元。这也可能鼓励高管们更仔细地考虑他们在银行资产负债表上承担的风险。
Silicon Valley Bank, the first to fail, took excessive risks. It had an unusually high number of uninsured depositors, and it was slow to react to the fact that its assets had fallen substantially in value as the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates. SVB executives failed at Banking 101: ensuring there are enough assets to cover liabilities. SVB collapsed. The FDIC took it over and had to provide $20 billion from a government deposit insurance fund to rescue all depositors. SVB chief executive Greg Becker had lobbied Congress for years to loosen regulations on midsize banks like his. He also suspiciously sold more than $3.5 million in SVB stock shortly before the collapse. Yet he has faced few consequences beyond losing his job. The Recoup Act seeks to change that.
最先倒闭的硅谷银行积累了过高的风险。它的无保险储户数量异常之多，而且随着美联储加息，它的资产大幅贬值，而它对这一事实反应迟缓。SVB的高管们忽视了银行业的基本常识：确保有足够的资产来偿还债务。SVB崩溃了。联邦存款保险公司接管了它，不得不从政府存款保险基金中拿出200亿美元来拯救所有储户。硅谷银行首席执行长贝克尔多年来一直在游说国会放松对该行等中型银行的监管。他还在倒闭前不久可疑地卖出了价值350多万美元的公司股票。然而，除了丢掉工作之外，他几乎没有面临什么后果。《弥补法案》试图改变这种状况。
This bill wouldn’t solve all the problems this spring’s banking crisis uncovered. Both executives and government authorities failed to do their jobs. Federal Reserve regulators were sluggish and negligent. Even when Fed supervisors did flag risk management pitfalls, they didn’t force change at the banks they oversaw.
这项法案不会解决今年春天银行业危机暴露出的所有问题。企业高管和政府当局都没有尽到自己的职责。美联储的监管机构行动迟缓，玩忽职守。即使美联储监管人员确实指出了风险管理缺陷，他们也没有强迫自己监管的银行做出改变。
But Chair Jerome H. Powell and other senior Fed leaders are in the midst of overhauling their processes, especially for midsize banks that have received too much leeway in recent years. Passing the Recoup Act would send a signal to bank leaders that recklessness will have consequences.
但美联储主席杰罗姆·H·鲍威尔和其他美联储高级领导人正在对其流程进行全面改革，尤其是对近年来获得过多回旋余地的中型银行。通过《弥补法案》将向银行管理层发出一个信号，即鲁莽行为将产生后果。