The CFTC met on cross-border issues with the Institute of International Bankers ("IIB"). Click here for more information.

CFTC Commissioner Chilton gave a speech in which he repeated the themes he has emphasized in the past: (i) that "massive passives" drive up the price of commodities to irrational levels and (ii) that high-speed traders have an unfair advantage over low-speed traders. Lofchie Comment: Commissioner Chilton attempts a very important task, which is to link economic theory to regulatory policy. I don't think that one can meaningfully debate regulatory policy without some view of economic theory. In fact, one of the themes of his speech is that different people may perceive the same events (or the

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew testified at a hearing held by the House Ways and Means Committee discussing the President's Fiscal Year 2014 Budget. In his oral testimony, Secretary Lew reiterated the U.S. government's opposition to a tax on financial transactions recently proposed by the European Union. Secretary Lew stated that such a tax would be "very troubling" in that it would apply on a cross-border basis, adding that from the perspective of the United States, it would be unacceptable policy for other countries to create a tax with extraterritorial reach by levying a tax on transactions

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs held a hearing discussing the role of independent consultants in the enforcement process of various regulators. The Committee heard testimony from, among others, Daniel P. Stipano, Deputy Chief Counsel at the OCC, and Richard Ashton, Deputy General Counsel at the Federal Reserve. Stipano reviewed the OCC's authority to require the use of independent consultants, the circumstances in which the OCC has ordered banks to engage independent consultants, the OCC's oversight of such independent consultants, significant results of the use of

On April 12th, CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler and CFTC Commissioner Scott O'Malia testified before the House Appropriations Committee on the Fiscal Year 2014 budget request for the CFTC. The chairman of the subcommittee, Robert Aderholt, stated that the CFTC had received six consecutive annual increases in funding, an overall increase of 85 percent since the 2008 Financial Crisis, which he indicated was disproportionate to increases in federal spending generally. He then went on to say that the CFTC's focus on hiring additional staff was "disconnected to the reality"; that most activity under CFTC