Pat Toomey

Rule Changes

Initiated GAO review that undermined legal footing of 2013 guidance

In March 2013, U.S. bank regulators issued joint supervisory guidance on leveraged lending to prevent a return of pre-2008-style underwriting excesses, with examiners informally anchoring scrutiny around a roughly six-times-EBITDA leverage benchmark. Over the next decade, banks’ pullback helped shift riskier deal finance toward private-credit funds, CLOs, and other nonbanks—expanding an opaque “shadow banking” ecosystem even as regulators maintained the guidance was supervisory, not a binding rule.

Updated Dec 11, 2025