“Better Bend than Break”

Opening Statement of Commissioner Bart Chilton before the CFTC Public Meeting on Dodd-Frank Rulemaking, Washington, DC

May 16, 2013

This set of three trading rules—SEF, MAT, and Block—have, to put it mildly, been a long time coming.  What is in front of us today has parts I like, parts I don’t like—that’s what compromise means.  As Churchill said, “The English never draw a line without blurring it.”

I think we could have achieved even greater transparency, and as my colleagues know, I put forth proposals in this regard. However, by failing to act, we leave in place unregulated dark markets. These are the very dark markets that got us into the economic mess in 2008. Secondly, by not acting, we are making a decision by default. We have allowed the futurization of swaps to take place. That is, we have seen some standardized swaps move to futures exchanges. If the market works out that way, fine. But we shouldn't push such futurization by regulatory dereliction of duty.

I will have some additional comments and some questions as we go forward.

Thanks to the staff and my colleagues for their efforts to get us, finally, to this point.

Last Updated: May 16, 2013