CFTC Faces Cash Crunch / CFTC Delays Cases, Shelves Probes, in Funding Squeeze
The CFTC is facing a cash crunch. David Meister, who stepped down this week as the agency’s enforcement chief, tells the WSJ’s Jean Eaglesham in this interview that it is so underfunded it has had to delay cases and shelve certain probes. The funding squeeze is forcing the CFTC to make “some very tough choices” about its work, Mr. Meister said. One example: the agency’s decision not to charge two former J.P. Morgan traders over the “London whale” trading mess.
Since Mr. Meister joined the CFTC in January 2011, the agency has reinvented itself. During his watch, it has nearly doubled its enforcement actions and tripled its sanctions, compared with the previous three-year period. But that pace may slow. The agency in the 12 months to Sept. 30 filed 82 enforcement actions, down a fifth compared with the previous year. And “serious budget challenges” are causing delays and other problems, Mr. Meister said.
Regulators often complain about funding pressures and CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler rarely makes a speech that doesn’t include a call for more money, Eaglesham notes. But Mr. Meister says his concerns go deeper than the typical regulatory refrain of “more, please.” His enforcement division is trying to do extra cases with fewer people, he said. It has about 155 officials, 10% fewer than when he started, and roughly the same number as 11 years ago. “That’s a very small staff compared with the size of the job,” Mr. Meister said, comparing the CFTC with the SEC, which has more than 1,200 enforcement officials. “It’s remarkable how small we are.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/cfo/2013/11/01/the-morning-ledger-cftc-faces-cash-crunch/
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