In a rare show of bipartisan unanimity, the U.S. Senate promoted the acting chairman and filled two vacancies on the commission.
J. Christopher Giancarlo, CFTC chairman
The CFTC has a nearly full slate of commissioners with the U.S. Senate’s unanimous vote late yesterday to promote J. Christopher Giancarlo from acting chairman to chairman, and to confirm Brian D. Quintenz, a Republican, and Rostin Behnam, a Democrat, as new commissioners.
Quintenz will join the CFTC from Saeculum Capital Management, “where he is the founder, managing principal, and chief investment officer,” according to the CFTC.
“Behnam serves as the senior counsel for the Senate Committee on Agricultural, Nutrition and Forestry,” CFTC officials add.
Giancarlo, whose business philosophy is in line with the free market push of President Trump, has been serving as the acting chairman since this past January when Timothy Massad stepped down from the chairmanship at the end of the Obama administration.
President Obama nominated Giancarlo to be a commissioner on August 1, 2013 and he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on June 3, 2014 and sworn in later that month.
Before his time on the CFTC, Giancarlo was an executive vice president for GFI Group Inc., which offers brokerage services, trade execution, market data, trading platforms and software products. Giancarlo became part of GFI when it acquired Fenics Software in 2005; he was serving as U.S. legal counsel for Fenics at the time. Previously, he held the post of corporate partner in the New York law firm of Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner.
Upon learning of his confirmation, Giancarlo issued a statement in which he said he was “humbled by the bipartisan support … As I have stated before, during my time as a commissioner, I have witnessed firsthand the enduring commitment of members of the US Senate to our common purpose of serving the American people and the agricultural producers upon which we all rely.”
Giancarlo also underscored his role to “fulfill the CFTC’s mission to foster open, transparent, competitive and financially sound markets, in a way that best fosters broad-based economic growth and American prosperity.”
He noted the confirmations of Benham and Quintenz, the pending confirmation of Dawn Stump, a Republican, and the likelihood that there will be “a full Commission soon.
“I am also grateful to Commissioner [Sharon Y.] Bowen for her partnership during my tenure as Acting Chairman, and I am proud of the excellent work we’ve accomplished together,” Giancarlo says.
After a series of departures, Bowen and Giancarlo were the only commissioners left, which hampered the regulator’s ability to tackle major industry issues.
Saying that she wanted to jolt the nomination process, Bowen announced in June that she would stepping down
Sharon Y. Bowen, CFTC commissioner
early from her post. As soon as a Democrat is found to replace her and is a match for Stump, she will leave the CFTC.
“I congratulate my colleague Chris Giancarlo on his Senate confirmation to be the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission,” Bowen says in a prepared statement. “The agenda of the CFTC and its hardworking staff will be in good hands with Chris as its leader. … The CFTC has a tremendous challenge in fulfilling its mandate, because the markets we oversee today are vastly different than the agency’s traditional role. Today, the CFTC oversees markets valued in the hundreds of trillions of dollars and transactions that happen faster than the blink of an eye.”
No one in the U.S. Senate raised objections to the appointments and the initial reaction among key industry groups was positive.
“We congratulate CFTC Chairman Giancarlo and Commissioners Quintenz and Behnam on their Senate confirmation,” says Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr., president and CEO for the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) in a prepared statement. “We look forward to working with them on issues that enhance and maintain the integrity of our capital markets and wish them success in their new roles,” Bentsen says. SIFMA represents broker-dealers, banks and asset managers.
A representative for the post-trade systems, services and utilities provider DTCC, Larry Thompson, vice chairman, says that Giancarlo’s “industry experience and his thoughtful approach to public policy make him a strong choice to lead the CFTC.
“We applaud the steps he’s taken with his colleagues to explore how fintech can increase the effectiveness of the CFTC as well as his ongoing commitment to building greater technological expertise within the agency,” Thompson says in a statement. “I would also like to extend my congratulations to newly confirmed Commissioners Behnam and Quintenz. Each brings a unique blend of expertise that will enable them to positively contribute to the CFTC’s mission.”
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