The Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") issued a final rule, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the "CFTC" and, collectively with the other regulatory agencies described herein, the "Agencies') issued a parallel final rule (collectively, the "Final Rule") on December 10, 2013, to implement the restrictions contained in Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Act, commonly known as the "Volcker rule." The Volcker rule generally prohibits banking entities from engaging in proprietary trading and from sponsoring and/or investing in certain types of private funds (e.g., covered funds).

In this summary, we provide answers to many frequently asked questions related to the covered funds aspects of the Volcker rule based upon the statutory language, the Final Rule, the regulatory history and the explanatory preamble that accompanied the issuance of the Final Rule (the "Preamble"). We plan to release in the near future a companion summary that will address the proprietary trading aspects of the Volcker rule.