The full Senate is expected to promote the Acting Chairman to the top spot for the regulator. But it may be lonely at the top.
J. Christopher Giancarlo, acting chairman, CFTC
Nominated by the Trump Team, J. Christopher Giancarlo will likely move up to become chairman of the CFTC after a vote of strong approval by a key Senate committee.
The committee vote was 16 to approve his nomination and five against, a spokesperson for the committee tells FTF News.
But, while there may be a new chairman soon, it may be a while before the regulator has new commissioners. The only other commissioner, Sharon Y. Bowen, will be stepping down.
U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the committee, reported on June 29 that Giancarlo’s nomination got the support of the committee and that he will be considered by the full U.S. Senate for confirmation.
“I’m pleased our committee has given the green light to full Senate consideration of Mr. Giancarlo’s nomination,” Roberts says in a prepared statement. “As evidenced by his testimony at our recent hearing about his visits to numerous farms and livestock operations, Mr. Giancarlo demonstrates an understanding of and commitment to fostering a functional marketplace for all participants, and that most certainly includes folks in rural America.”
Roberts adds that Giancarlo secured the support of organizations representing farmers, co-ops, grain dealers and millers, food processors, feed manufacturers and others stakeholders.
The Senate has not yet scheduled a vote on Giancarlo’s nomination. Previously, the committee conducted a hearing on his nomination on June 22.
“When I spoke to you in 2014, I explained that my best qualification to serve on the CFTC was my commercial expertise in the global over-the-counter swaps markets,” Giancarlo said at the June 22 hearing. “I was then — and remain today — a supporter of the swaps reforms established in 2009 by the G20 leaders and embodied in Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act. I said that my support for these reforms was not based on academic theory or political ideology. It was based on practical experience.”
Giancarlo says that he has not changed his support for swaps reforms during his three years on the commission.
“Yes, I have criticized some of the agency’s implementation of the reforms — almost always where I believed it was impractical, overly burdensome or out of step with Congressional intent,” Giancarlo says. “Yet, in all cases, I advocated alternative approaches I believe better support healthy markets and are more faithful to the law. … There is more work to be done to make the CFTC a 21st century regulator for our 21st century markets, and I look forward to partnering with members of the Agriculture and Appropriations Committees in both the House and the Senate, if confirmed, to achieve this goal.”
Giancarlo’s approach to regulation and his push to grow markets are seen by industry observers to be in line with the Trump administration.
But as Giancarlo moves up, CFTC Commissioner Bowen recently announced that she will be leaving her post before her term is up. She stated at the time that the move is her way to hasten the process for filling commission vacancies.
“My hope is thus that by leaving early, I can inspire the key decision-makers to confirm four nominees as soon as possible,” Bowen said in her June 20 closing statement for the Market Risk Advisory Committee (MRAC), for which she served as a sponsor.
The Trump administration has begun the lengthy process of nominating CFTC commissioners.
In May, the Trump Team announced that former fund manager Brian D. Quintenz of Ohio has been nominated a second time to be a CFTC commissioner. The White House has also put forth Dawn Stump who has worked on the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee to be a commissioner. Their nominations are waiting as the administration considers potential commissioners from the Democratic side of the aisle.
The CFTC commissioner posts are split between the Democrats and Republicans.
Before joining the CFTC in 2014, Giancarlo was served as the executive vice president of GFI Group Inc., an interdealer brokerage, officials say. Before his time at GFI, he was executive vice president and U.S. legal counsel for Fenics Software and was a corporate partner in the New York law firm of Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner.
During his time as acting chairman, Giancarlo has worked with Bowen to “advance 74 formal Commission actions, roughly one action for every two days,” according to the CFTC.
“These actions include the launch of new initiatives such as LabCFTC and Project KISS [keep it simple stupid], creating the new Market Intelligence Branch and the role of chief market intelligence officer and taking swift action on more than 20 important enforcement cases,” officials say.
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