President Barack Obama last week proclaimed that the Dodd-Frank reforms meant that the US government would never again foot the bill for bank bailouts. And former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson contends that he would have been able to take over Lehman Brothers and AIG with relative ease in 2008, had the legislation existed then.

But critics of the reforms continue to warn that they do not adequately address many of the structural problems that caused the crisis. Financial News looks at some of the causes and the extent to which the new law will serve to prevent a recurrence.