“Under the plain language,” of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, MetLife isn’t eligible for designation, because the company is not “predominantly engaged in financial activities,” MetLife said in its filing. A side-effect of companies moving overseas to avoid US corporate tax? We really do need to bring our tax systems in line with the rest of the developed world, both personal and corporate. No problem, Metlife. But say goodbye to that Tricare contract – because a foreign-held company shouldn’t receive taxpayer money to insure government employees. “Although the company repeatedly accuses the council of engaging in ‘speculation,’ ‘conjecture’ and ‘guesswork,’ in fact it simply disagrees with the council’s analysis, predictions and conclusions,” the government said. “There are well-established principles to guide risk analysis,” MetLife lawyer Eugene Scalia said. “FSOC ignored them.” Perhaps we need a little truth in advertising. Require all these companies to include a disclaimer in their TV ads, in print as large and words as loud as their tag line, “Not an American company” or “A Bahamas corporation”. Then we let market forces decide how important it is to them to be American. “Metlife: Guarantees for the IF in life. Not an American company.” You are being misled by an egregiously ignorant article. Anyway, long story short metlife is fighting its designation as a systemically important non-bank financial institution. It’s a completely arbitrary designation that is a typical by product of dodd franks uselessness, of whom the only other two are AIG and prudential. All of whom have a great case not be considered systemically important like banks, because they are insurance companies. AIG pretty much has to take it because of what happened with their derivatives group in 2008 (even though that business has been shut down and now AiG is just a regular, albeit large, insurer). But PRU and MET are being dragged along by bureaucratic regulators who feel they designate somebody for an additional layer of regulation to comply with the idiotic rules passed by congress in Dodd-Frank.