To restrain risk-taking and reduce the potential for federal support for banking entities, The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act 2010 (“Dodd-Frank Act”) prohibits banking entities from engaging in certain proprietary trading. It also restricts investments in hedge funds, which actively trade in securities and other financial contracts, and private equity funds, which use debt financing to invest in companies or other less liquid assets. Regulators must implement these restrictions, also known as the “Volcker Rule”, by October 2011. As required by Section 989 of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Government Accountability Office reviewed: (i) what is known about the risks associated with such activities and the potential effects of the restrictions; and (ii) how regulators oversee such activities. The report notes that regulators have yet to gather comprehensive information on the extent, revenues, and risk levels associated with activities that will potentially be covered, which would help them assess whether expected changes in firms’ revenues and risk levels have occurred. Without such data, regulators will not know the full scope of such activities outside of stand-alone proprietary trading desks and may be less able to ensure that the firms have taken sufficient steps to curtail restricted activity. The report concludes that as part of implementing the new restrictions, regulators should collect and review more comprehensive information on the nature and volume of activities potentially covered by the act.