One of the changes introduced by the sweeping new fi nancial market legislation of the Dodd–Frank Act is the provision of a formal process for liquidating large fi nancial fi rms—something that would have been useful in 2008, when troubles at Lehman Brothers, AIG, and Merrill Lynch threatened to damage the entire U.S. fi nancial system. While it may not be the end of the too-big-to-fail problem, the orderly liquidation authority is an important new tool in the regulatory toolkit. It will enable regulators to safely close and wind up the affairs of those distressed fi nancial fi rms whose failure could destabilize the fi nancial system.