2014 CFTC Enforcement Year-in-Review, and a Look Forward

2014 CFTC Enforcement Year-in-Review, and a Look Forward

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Our team provides guidance on all facets of swaps, futures and derivatives market activity, including regulatory compliance, transactions, litigation, and investigations and enforcement.
WilmerHale has defended clients in hundreds of class, derivative, shareholder and individual actions alleging securities fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and other corporate misconduct.
In 2014, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC” or the “Commission”) filed 67 new enforcement cases—fewer than any year since 2010—but obtained a record $3.27 billion in monetary sanctions, nearly double the previous record of $1.7 billion set in 2013. Roughly half of this amount was recovered in foreign-exchange (“FX”) manipulation settlements with five major banks. The Commission’s enforcement record in 2014 continues the recent trend of a decline in the overall number of enforcement cases filed annually, but with a greater focus on complex, high-profile cases and the imposition of significantly higher sanctions. In addition, as expected, the Commission began to flex its use of the new enforcement powers provided by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (“Dodd-Frank”). Although the agency has undergone a change in leadership with the arrival of three new Commissioners and a new Director of the Division of Enforcement (“Division”), we expect these trends to continue through 2015. We also expect to see a greater focus on market structure and high-frequency trading issues, as part of the Commission’s core market integrity mission.

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