Goldman lobbyists have met with Dodd-Frank regulators nearly 100 times

Introduction

Lobbyists for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. met at least 97 times with federal regulators responsible for executing the Dodd-Frank financial reform law over the past year, including eight sessions in June with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to discuss derivatives rules, according to a new database created by Sunlight Foundation.

Sunlight’s searchable tool provides one-stop shopping for reform watchers who want to track which regulators and industry lobbyists sat down together before the hundreds of rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank law are finalized.

Many of the recent lobbying visits have targeted the CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission, which are preparing the first-ever regulations for the $600 trillion derivatives market that is dominated by major U.S. and international banks.

Lobbyist meetings related to the Dodd-Frank law have been publicly available for months, but scattered across several agency web sites and organized differently by each one.

Each meeting entry typically includes the names of lobbyists and agency employees who attended, a brief description of the topic discussed, and the date. Some meetings include copies of materials lobbyists gave to an agency.

Following is a list of some companies and advocacy groups active in lobbying, and the number of meetings each has had with federal regulators since last summer, based on the Sunlight database:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. – 97

JP Morgan Chase & Co. – 75

Morgan Stanley – 73

Bank of America Corp. – 61

Securities Industry and Financial Markets Assn. (SIFMA)– 65

International Swaps and Derivatives Assn. (ISDA) – 55

Citigroup Inc. – 42

Barclays – 42

UBS – 39

Wells Fargo & Co. – 38

CME – 33

Deutsche Bank – 32

Chamber of Commerce – 30

Financial Services Roundtable – 28

Americans for Financial Reform – 19

Consumer Federation of America – 12

Center for Responsible Lending – 8