Statement of Commissioner Scott D. O’Malia on the CFTC’s Voluntary Dismissal of its Appeal of the 2011 Position Limits Rule

October 29, 2013

Today, the Commission has voted to dismiss its appeal¹ of the federal district court decision² to strike down the Commission’s 2011 position limit rule.³

The Commission should never have pursued an appeal in the first place.  As I pointed out at the time,⁴ the district court concluded that the Commission had failed to do its homework in drafting the rule.  The clear lesson for the Commission, then, was that it needed to go back to the drawing board and propose a new rule with the proper statutory and empirical foundation. Instead, the Commission chose to take a dual-track approach and doubled down on its no-justification-needed stance in the old rule while simultaneously drafting a new proposed rule, investing unnecessary time and resources over the past eleven months.  Wasting valuable taxpayer dollars on this legal dead-end is especially troubling given today’s austere budget situation.

¹ ISDA & SIFMA v. CFTC, No. 12-5362 (D.C. Cir.).

² Int’l Swaps & Derivatives Ass’n v. CFTC, 887 F. Supp. 2d 259, 280-82 (D.D.C. 2012).

³ 76 Fed. Reg. 71626 (Nov. 18, 2011).

⁴ http://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/SpeechesTestimony/omaliadissentstatement111512.

Last Updated: October 29, 2013