Scott D. O’Malia, the soon-to-be former CFTC commissioner who sometimes reluctantly ushered in derivatives reform, will become CEO of the leading private industry overseer for over-the-counter derivative transactions, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), effective August 18, say ISDA officials. The appointment comes just two days after O’Malia announced in a letter to President… Read More >>
CFTC’s Scott O’Malia to Resign
CFTC Commissioner Scott D. O’Malia announced yesterday that he will be resigning next month “to pursue other opportunities,” only seven weeks after the Obama administration via Senate approval appointed two new commissioners and a new chairman. In his July 21 resignation letter to President Obama, O’Malia, a 2009 Republican appointee serving a term not set… Read More >>
New Derivatives Rules to Burden Ops
Josh Brodman must be a little nostalgic for the time—only about a year ago—when the fine print of the clearing and execution reforms for derivatives trading was still being finalized. At the time, he was an operations manager for a multi-strategy, event-driven fund with several billion under management. Life is much different now for Brodman,… Read More >>
New CFTC Commissioner Picks Staff
Recently confirmed CFTC Commissioner J. Christopher Giancarlo has appointed Jason Goggins and Marcia Blase to his senior staff, as chief of staff and chief counsel, respectively. Giancarlo is one of three new commissioners who joined the CFTC last month, following U.S. Senate confirmation. Formerly, he was an executive vice president at the GFI Group, a… Read More >>
CFTC Reshuffle Continues
In the latest of several recent personnel shake-ups at the CFTC, the regulator this week named Gretchen Lowe the new principal deputy director and chief counsel for the Enforcement Division, officials say. Lowe was previously acting director of the division until former federal prosecutor Aitan Goelman was named to the spot last week by new… Read More >>
Senate Hearing Yields CAT Calls
Legislators and panelists butted heads about what, exactly, the effects of high frequency trading are on securities trading during a Senate hearing Wednesday that went largely unobserved by the mainstream media. But all agreed that the SEC needs to stop dragging its feet and implement the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) that’s hung in limbo for… Read More >>
Tullett Prebon Info Targets Fragmented SDR Data
Data provider Tullett Prebon Information (TPI) has just launched an aggregated swap data feed that attempts to collect and standardize the vast amounts of data made available by the creation of Dodd-Frank mandated swap data repositories (SDRs). Dodd-Frank requires reporting counterparties and reporting entities to submit swap transaction data to SDRs via electronic reporting to… Read More >>
New CFTC Chairman Picks Staff
Newly appointed CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad has appointed several key members of the team that will work closely with him during his chairmanship. Along with Massad, these individuals will “work with the chairman to set the agenda of the commission and to carry out the responsibilities of implementing the Dodd-Frank Act” and other CFTC regulations,… Read More >>
Buy Side Avoiding SEFs
Buy-side firms have made great strides in the past five years in revamping their over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives trading infrastructures and processes even though they are avoiding swap execution facilities (SEFs) as often as they can, says Cynthia Meyn, executive vice president and senior operations manager for bond fund manager PIMCO, who spoke during a panel… Read More >>
Fed Prosecutor Heads CFTC Enforcement
CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad has named Aitan Goelman to be the director of the agency’s division of enforcement. Goelman is a former federal prosecutor with more than 20 years of experience litigating both criminal and civil matters. He will be a “tough, aggressive and fair leader at a critical time in the commission’s history,” Massad… Read More >>
