The rule proposal would provide welcome updates to the requirements for the storage of electronic records under CFTC Rule 1.31. Significantly, the proposal would eliminate many of the prescriptive requirements of the current rule, including the need for firms to use outdated "write once, read many" (or "WORM") storage media. Instead, the proposed new rule would adopt a technology-neutral requirement that electronic records be maintained in ways that preserved their "authenticity and…

Commissioner Giancarlo's remarks are positive, given that he must work within the existing Dodd Frank legislation. Under prior management, the CFTC managed to take a bad piece of legislation and turn it into rulemaking that proved to be even worse. Under new management, which understands the benefits that hedging through swaps provides to the financial markets, and which does not bear the burden of having to justify flawed rulemakings from the past, material regulatory progress is possible…

Political contributions, like personal investment decisions, are subject to strict control processes and must be made in light of those processes.

That regulators should be required to take the costs and benefits of their rulemakings into account seems entirely reasonable. The questions that arise are these: (i) how quantifiable are these costs and benefits in reality, and (ii) how seriously will regulators take the cost-benefit analysis requirement? In his farewell remarks, outgoing Department of Labor Secretary Thomas Perez asserted that the DOL's new fiduciary rule would save investors seventeen billion dollars a year. (…