Representatives of mutual funds and businesses filed a lawsuit against the CFTC in protest of rules requiring the entities to register with the regulator. The Investment Company Institute and the U.S. Chambers of Commerce complained that the rule was a duplicate of an already existing requirement for funds to register with the SEC. The law requires mutual funds advisers and exchange-trade d funds advisers to register in certain cases with the CFTC, including if the fund’s futures, swaps, and options trades exceed certain thresholds. The CFTC approved the rule in February by a 4-1 vote.
The lawsuit is similar to the one industry groups brought against the CFTC in December. Both are based on the grounds that the CFTC did not apply comprehensive cost-benefit analysis t he rules before finalizing them.
“The CFTC openly admits in their rule that they were unable to predict the rule’s costs at the time the rule was promulgated,” David Hirschmann, the head of the Chamber’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, said. “That is just not good government.”
