How Wall Street banks fought to keep control of a profitable but secretive trading business

Court documents reviewed by Axios show just how alarmed Wall Street banks were by efforts to regulate their derivatives trading desks after the 2008 financial crisis. Why it matters: These emails, presentations and internal memos illuminate the financial sector's attempts to shape the rules and shield key profit centers — a technique alive and well today. They were produced during discovery in an ongoing litigation and later seen by Axios. Flashback: When the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul became law in 2010, a major part of it directed agencies to write rules for the previously unregulated Wall Street derivatives trading business. What they said: "I am quite worried about rates," wrote JPMorgan Chase executive Jeremy Barnum — today he is the bank's CFO — in a 2010 email. He added that the business of standard interest rate swaps "has a significant risk of being 'exchangeified.'" Background: The $160 trillion market for U.S.-dollar interest rate swaps — contractual bets on the direction

Court documents reviewed by Axios show just how alarmed Wall Street banks were by efforts to regulate their derivatives trading desks after the 2008 financial crisis. Why it matters: These emails, presentations and internal memos illuminate the financial sector's attempts to shape the rules and shield key profit centers — a technique alive and well today. They were produced during discovery in an ongoing litigation and later seen by Axios. Flashback: When the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul became law in 2010, a major part of it directed agencies to write rules for the previously unregulated Wal