CFTC Enforcement Director James M. McDonald described the CFTC's guiding priorities for the Division's enforcement program. The program is intended to have broad "social impact" and promote a "culture of compliance," he said.
In a speech delivered at NYU Law School, Mr. McDonald highlighted four primary priorities:
- "Preserving market integrity": The Division works to ensure an effective price discovery process.
- "Protecting customers": The Division prioritizes staying "one step ahead" of bad actors.
- "Promoting individual accountability": The Division makes individual accountability the center of efforts to deter misconduct.
- "Enhancing coordination with other regulators and criminal authorities": The CFTC collaborates with regulators and law enforcement to ensure that misconduct is identified, appropriately investigated and prosecuted.
Mr. McDonald pointed to the use of data analytics and specialized task forces on spoofing, virtual currency, insider trading, and AML as CFTC initiatives that are central to advancing these priorities. He noted the growth of the CFTC's cooperation and self-reporting program, saying that companies will benefit if they take appropriate remedial steps after discovering misconduct.
As to the numbers, Mr. McDonald reported:
"[t]his was a year of incredibly vigorous enforcement at the CFTC. That's true whether you measure it by the number of filed cases (third highest in CFTC history), amount of penalties imposed (fourth highest), number of large-scale matters (highest), types of cases charged (most ever involving manipulative conduct), number of parallel criminal actions (highest), percentage of cases that include individual charges (more than 2/3), or the number and amount of whistleblower awards (highest on both counts)."
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