Statement of CFTC Commissioner Mark Wetjen on CFTC Approval of TOCOM as an FBOT
January 21, 2015
Washington, DC – I am pleased that Chairman Tim Massad brought forward and the Commission then moved quickly to approve registration of the Tokyo Commodity Exchange, Inc. (TOCOM) as a Foreign Board of Trade (FBOT). As I have stressed before, this cross-border approach to the oversight of trading platforms incentivizes higher standards around the world by requiring foreign entities that want access to U.S. market participants to be subject to supervision that is comparable and comprehensive to our regime under Dodd-Frank. I hope the Commission will move quickly to consider the remaining applications for FBOTs that have been relying on no-action relief for years.
As a next step, I believe the Commission should formalize a regulatory regime for foreign Swap Execution Facilities, just as Congress contemplated in the Dodd-Frank Act. Embracing a foreign SEF regime would be a useful step toward implementing the CFTC’s cross-border framework and would also help prevent unnecessary fragmentation of the global swaps market. Just as with FBOTs and substituted compliance, a foreign SEF regime would incentivize foreign jurisdictions to harmonize their regulations with ours.
Last Updated: January 21, 2015
