Former CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton has one regret about his time with the commodities regulator — he wishes that he had stayed a little longer to make the position limits rule on commodity exposures a reality.
The potential rule, as defined by the CFTC in late 2016, would set “limits on speculative positions in 25 core physical commodity futures contracts and their ‘economically equivalent’ futures, options, and swaps (referenced contracts),” according to an official statement.
However, finding consensus on the rule has been elusive. Still, the current set of commissioners and SEC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo have made public statements that they are in favor of ultimately enacting a position limits rule.
Chilton says that he now wishes that he had delayed his departure slightly to make certain that the position limits rule went into effect.
“I left in April of ’14 and I thought it was on a glide path,” Chilton says. A second version of rule had been approved and appeared to be heading toward approval. “I thought it was going to be supported by Republicans and Democrats alike. But it took too long, and then there was ultimately a changing of the guard there as a result of 2016. It’s still not completed,” he says.
Despite the absence of a new rule, “markets have been operating pretty efficiently and effectively without the position limits. But I think we will rue the day when we don’t have those in the future. I hope that’s a long way off. I hope they do implement position limits,” Chilton says. “But I sorta wish I’d stuck around to actually insure that those were completed.”
FTF News spoke with Chilton during FTF’s derivatives processing conference, DerivOps North America, held last month in Chicago. Chilton served as a keynote speaker for the conference.
At DerivOps, Chilton also commented upon the crypto currency phenomenon.
Chilton served on the CFTC from 2007 to 2014, and was originally nominated by President George W. Bush. Two years later, he was re-nominated by President Barack Obama and re-confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
During his time at the CFTC, he was chairman of the regulator’s Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee (EEMAC). In addition, his government service career of 25 years includes working on Capitol Hill in the House of Representatives, in the Senate, and serving in the executive branch via the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations.
Join us for DerivOps North America 2019, May 6-9 in Chicago!
CREDITS:
Video Production: Janene Knox and William J. Poznanski, Jr.
Interview conducted by: Eugene Grygo, chief content officer, FTF News
Co-Producers: Sarah Hathaway, vice president, Financial Technologies Forum (FTF) and Eugene Grygo
Need a Reprint?