Federal regulators are considering holding Wall Street chief executives legally liable if they allow certain types of proprietary trading on their watch. The idea is that holding CEOs personally accountable will add a strong deterrent effect to the Volcker rule. Regulators due to reveal the Volcker rule proposal next week are expected to ask whether CEOs should have to certify, or "attest," that their bank has put in place the proper systems to make sure no proprietary trading is taking place. The bank industry is already balking at the legal burden and compliance headache that would come with a CEO certification. The rule, called for in last year's Dodd-Frank financial oversight law, bans banks from trading for their own profit in securities, derivatives and some other financial instruments. A CEO certification approach may be similar to 2002's Sarbanes-Oxley law. That law, put in place after major accounting scandals at Enron and Worldcom, has the power to send executives to prison and make them pay multimillion-dollar fines for submitting false certifications on corporate disclosures. It is unclear if regulators will seek CEO imprisonment or hefty fines as potential penalties for violating the Volcker rule. Whatever regulators might put in place, fines would be a far more likely punishment if any are ever doled out, banking lawyers said. Supporters of the proposal contend it would force the CEO to be more involved and accountable. But despite banks' concerns, regulators may go easier on the issue of CEOs' legal liability than the industry's worst fears. A draft of the rule to be considered next week by regulators does not explicitly call for a CEO certification and instead solicits feedback on whether it should be in a final rule. [Reuters, 10/7/11]