MetLife went to the mats over its SIFI label . . . and it won big.  A federal judge in D.C. yesterday rescinded the “too big to fail” designation for the insurer, though the government can appeal the decision.  The decision is sealed, so details of the court’s reasoning are scarce at this stage – NYTimes and WSJ and Law360

Here’s what the decision could mean for Dodd-Frank going forward [hint, maybe big trouble] – NYTimes and WSJ

While MetLife went to court to rid itself of SIFI-dom, GE’s going about it the old-fashioned way [okay, so there’s nothing all that old fashioned involved when the label itself is less than a decade old. But bear with me]—by breaking itself into much smaller pieces.  It did more shedding this week, agreeing to sell its asset management business to State Street Corp for $485 million – NYTimes and WSJ

And it sold off its US hotel loan portfolio to Western Alliance Bancorp as well – Law360

We learned yesterday that venture capital firms are booming these days.  Where’s the money coming from? Hedge funds, for one, has poor returns have prompted investors to yank billions from funds in past months, including nearly $20 billion in January alone – WSJ

NY state judge Marcy Friedman has nixed trustee HSBC’s bid to substitute itself as plaintiff on behalf of two RMBS certificate holders and sue Deutsche Bank over alleged breaches in reps and warrants that resulted in over $330 million in losses. Judge Friedman said HSBC couldn’t invoke NYCPL 206(a) to refile the claims outside of the limitations period – Law360

The Deal Professor digs into a possible Starwood/Anbang deal to ask what would happen if something were to go wrong.  That is, how would Starwood actually enforce the deal when dealing with an investment group based in China—“notorious for its weak rule of law”? A “super escrow” could help, but either way, it looks like Starwood would be assuming quite a bit of risk – NYTimes

Here’s FinTech’s impact on the banking industry in real numbers: up to 30% of current banking employees may be out of a job in the next 10 years thanks to new technologies – NYTimes and WSJ

Country star George Strait famously sang of “oceanfront property in Arizona”—winkingly ironic at the time but perhaps not as much anymore, thanks to new climate projections for the West Antarctic ice sheet – NYTimes