The SEC is delaying a new Dodd-Frank-mandated rule defining swaps, jeopardizing the timeline for a number of other rules that cannot come into effect until swaps are defined, said sources familiar with the matter.
The CFTC is said to have completed its work on the rule, but because the two agencies must issue it jointly, the CFTC must wait until the SEC is ready.
Both lawmakers and other regulators have criticized the delay. A letter signed by more than a dozen Senators stated that “any further delay of such a basic requirement is entirely unacceptable.”
“We have been continually reassured we are going to consider this joint rule with the SEC ‘next month’,” CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton said at a Mutual Fund Directors Forum conference in Washington. “I see no promise of movement from the SEC on this. We are two years into this new law, and position limits were supposed to be implemented after six months.”
Chilton also called for the Financial Stability Oversight Council, led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, to push the SEC to speed up its rulemaking.
