CFTC officials report that Gary Barnett, director of the regulator’s division of swap dealer and intermediary oversight (DSIO), will depart the agency in January to take a senior position at the SEC. Tom Smith, currently deputy director for DSIO’s capital, margin and segregation branch (CMS), will become the DSIO interim director.
Barnett joined the CFTC in August 2011 to organize and head the newly created DSIO, according to a CFTC statement, which specifies that he “established the division’s swap dealer registration and compliance programs; led the responses to the futures commission merchants and retail foreign exchange dealer crises following the failure of MF Global, including the reorientation of DSIO’s exam branch and the adoption of the FCM customer protection rules.”
Barnett also formed DSIO’s CPO/CTA team and led many of its key initiatives, officials say. He also contributed to many Dodd-Frank rulemakings and the CFTC’s cross-border guidance, “and led DSIO’s implementation work for the new Dodd-Frank and customer protection rules.”
Before joining the CFTC, Barnett was a partner and headed the U.S. derivatives and structured finance practice group at Linklaters in New York, and before joining Linklaters in 2004, he was a partner and co-head of the securitization and derivatives practice at Shearman & Sterling, according to the CFTC statement.
Tom Smith joined the CFTC as an attorney advisor in 1992, having previously worked as a certified public accountant with Price Waterhouse. As head of DSIO’s CMS branch, his responsibilities have included capital, margin and segregation requirements for market intermediaries, including FCMs and swap dealers, according to the CFTC.
“While we are sorry to lose Gary, I look forward to continuing to work with him at the SEC,” CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad says in the statement, in which he salutes Barnett for his “dedicated service and counsel.”
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