Today, five financial regulators – Department of Treasury, Federal Reserve, FDIC, SEC, and CFTC – approved the long-awaited “Volcker Rule.”  The Rule implements Section 13 of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, which was added by Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Act.  The Rule generally prohibits banks with federally-insured deposits from engaging in proprietary trading or taking ownership stakes in hedge funds or private equity funds.  Exemptions exist for, among other things, market making activities, hedging activities, and trading in U.S. government bonds.