I 
116TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 3885 
To amend the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 to defer part of the 
compensation of senior employees of large bank holding companies (and 
their subsidiaries) for 10 years, to use such deferred amounts to pay 
any civil or criminal fines that may be levied on the bank holding 
company (or subsidiary), and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 23, 2019 
Ms. GABBARD introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Financial Services 
A BILL 
To amend the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 to defer 
part of the compensation of senior employees of large 
bank holding companies (and their subsidiaries) for 10 
years, to use such deferred amounts to pay any civil 
or criminal fines that may be levied on the bank holding 
company (or subsidiary), and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Wall Street Banker 
Accountability for Misconduct Act of 2019’’. 
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SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
The Congress finds the following: 
(1) Senior employees of major bank holding 
companies receive extraordinary pay packages, even 
when they oversee massive frauds and financial mis-
conduct. 
(2) Widespread financial misconduct by indi-
vidual Wall Street bankers led to the 2008 financial 
crisis, which caused the Great Recession. The De-
partment of Justice brought litigation against every 
major 
bank, 
resulting 
in 
more 
than 
$163,000,000,000 in fines. 
(3) This misconduct resulted from the actions 
of individuals and was a direct result of a banking 
culture that rewards bad behavior. 
(4) Despite the actions of individuals, Wall 
Street banks paid billions of dollars in fines out of 
monies that otherwise were owned and could be paid 
in dividends to shareholders. While culpable bankers 
continued to receive extraordinary pay, innocent 
shareholders paid the price for banker misconduct. 
(5) In the aftermath of the Great Recession, 
and after further misconduct in the financial serv-
ices industry, the Federal Reserve Bank of New 
York has urged financial firms to reevaluate and re-
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form their compensation incentive structures to align 
with shareholders and customers interests. 
(6) Misaligned incentives within the banking in-
dustry continue to fail to hold Wall Street executives 
and their senior employees accountable for their ac-
tions. 
SEC. 3. DEFERMENT OF SENIOR EMPLOYEE COMPENSA-
TION. 
The Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (12 U.S.C. 
1841 et seq.) is amended by inserting after section 5 the 
following: 
‘‘SEC. 6. DEFERMENT OF SENIOR EMPLOYEE COMPENSA-
TION. 
‘‘(a) DEFERMENT FUND.—Each covered bank hold-
ing company and each subsidiary of a covered bank hold-
ing company shall establish a deferment fund, which 
shall— 
‘‘(1) only contain compensation deferred under 
subsection (b); and 
‘‘(2) only be used as permitted by this section. 
‘‘(b) DEFERMENT OF COMPENSATION.—Each cov-
ered bank holding company and each subsidiary of a cov-
ered bank holding company shall— 
‘‘(1) each year, defer the compensation of each 
senior employee of the bank holding company or 
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