Inspired by this year’s presidential debate, the NIBA hosted its first ever compliance debate at a conference for their 25th year anniversary held at the CME Group on Sept. 14. Robert DeMuria, Vice President and Co-founder of Compliance Supervisors International, and Alexandra Lively, OSMTH United Nations Delegate, moderated the debate with an outstanding group of industry professionals. The panelists included Joseph Mazza, President and Co-founder of Compliance Supervisors International, James Bibbings, Founder and President of Turnkey Trading Partners, Patricia Cushing, Director of Compliance at National Futures Association, Scott Williamson, Deputy Regional Counsel at the CFTC, Erin Middleton, Senior Rules and Regulatory Outreach Specialist at the CME Group, Matt Kluchenek, Partner at Baker & McKenzie, Marc Nagel, Independent Compliance Consultant and Expert Witness, and John Roe, Co-founder of the Commodity Customer Coalition; Principal at BTR Trading Group; Founder of Roe Capital Management.
Pictured Left to Right: Mr. Williamson, Miss Lively and Mr. Nagel
The debate focused on addressing very key ‘gray areas’ in regulation. Discussion began with Robert asking Patricia, Matt and John about the NFA filing a proposed interpretive notice with the CFTC requiring CTA and CPO members to report financial ratio information surrounding their assets and liabilities as well as income and expenses. The panelists discussed how this could affect the CTA and CPO community as well as any benefits for the customers or only for regulators. Alexandra then posed questions to Scott and Matt regarding the intricacies of the CFTC’s growing Whistleblower Program, potential ‘tipping’ cases with enforcement of insider trading under Regulation 180.1, stemming from the first ever insider trading case the CFTC brought and settled on consent, and addressed the ‘great deal of excitement and attention to the potential of Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology’ enforcement actions. Joseph, Patricia and James then debated the regulation of block trading IBs through field interpretations versus operational guidelines addressed by the regulator. Erin and Marc provided tremendous insight on spoofing, why it has been difficult to eliminate it, and expanded on the technology and artificial intelligence available to the industry to detect or prevent it from occurring. To conclude, Erin, James and Marc debated Regulation Automated Trading, whether the CFTC may have cast too wide of a net with the proposed rule and provided their thoughts on whether this regulation is beneficial or another costly compliance burden for CTAs, CPOs and IBs. The information and insight shared throughout the compliance debate provided in-depth analysis directly from industry experts on key ‘gray areas’ in regulation, with very positive feedback from those in attendance.
