Rob Schwartz

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Rob Schwartz is the General Counsel at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In that role, Mr. Schwartz leads the agency’s Office of the General Counsel and serves as the Commission’s chief legal advisor. He was appointed General Counsel in January 2022 after serving for a year as Acting General Counsel.

Since joining the CFTC in 2011, Mr. Schwartz has served primarily as the CFTC’s chief litigator, in the position of Deputy General Counsel for Litigation, Enforcement and Adjudication. He has successfully represented the CFTC in numerous critically significant cases, including several lawsuits challenging the agency’s implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act, many appeals in enforcement actions, and bankruptcies of CFTC registrants.

Mr. Schwartz joined the CFTC from private practice where he represented businesses and individuals in enforcement actions and investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and other government agencies, as well as in private civil actions at all levels of the federal judicial system covering a broad range of business issues. Prior to that, Mr. Schwartz served as a law clerk to the Honorable Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Mr. Schwartz holds a JD, magna cum laude, from New York University School of Law and a BA in Political Science from Tufts University.

CFTC Representative Cases:

• In re Commodity Futures Trading Commission, 941 F.3d 869 (7th Cir. 2019) (granting a writ of mandamus to halt an unlawful evidentiary hearing);
• CFTC v. Monex Credit Corp., 931 F.3d 966 (9th Cir. 2019) (reversing district court’s dismissal of antifraud enforcement action and affirming agency’s authority to police cash commodity markets for fraud, and to regulate certain leveraged, margined, or financed commodity transaction) (argued personally);
• Securities Indus. & Fin. Mkts. Ass’n v. CFTC, 67 F. Supp. 3d 373 (D.D.C. 2014) (granting summary judgment in the agency’s favor in all critical respects in an APA challenge to CFTC’s power under Dodd-Frank to regulate cross-border swaps activities) (argued personally);
• DTCC Data Repository (U.S.) LLC v. CFTC, 25 F. Supp. 3d 9 (D.D.C. 2014) (motion to dismiss granted in part in a case concerning swap-data-repository regulation under Dodd-Frank; remaining claims dismissed voluntarily);
• Bloomberg L.P. v. CFTC, 949 F. Supp. 2d 91  (D.D.C. 2013) (dismissing complaint in an APA challenge to CFTC margin-liquidation rule under Dodd-Frank for derivatives clearing organizations) (argued personally);
• Investment Company Institute v. CFTC, 891 F. Supp. 2d 162 (D.D.C. 2012), aff’d, 720 F.3d 370 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (granting/affirming summary judgment and dismissal in successful defense against APA challenge to CFTC Dodd-Frank registration and data reporting rules for registered investment companies);
• In re MF Global, Inc., No. 11-2790 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.) (lead counsel representing the Commission in bankruptcy of major futures commission merchant and broker-dealer).

Education

• JD, magna cum laude, New York University School of Law (2003)
• BA, Tufts University (1998)