In the 18 months since Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Act, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has finalized nearly 30 different rulemakings related to the reporting, trading and clearing of derivatives.
Although there is still quite a bit of work to be done, CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler says the agency is still on track to complete the rulemaking process by the second half of this year. "As I've said all along, we are working to complete these rules in a thoughtful, balanced way—not against the clock," Gensler said at the agency's open meeting on Feb. 23.
It has not been a smooth process, however. The agency's two Republican commissioners, Jill Sommers and Scott O'Malia, have dissented on many of the rulemakings citing concerns about inadequate cost-benefit analysis, excessive complexity, extraterritorial impact and insufficient coordination with other regulators.
While some of the final rules cannot be implemented until other rules are finalized—the product and entity definitions in particular—much of the overall framework is now in place. The table below outlines certain Dodd-Frank rulemakings that have been finalized and several of the more important outstanding proposals, listed in reverse chronological order.
The table includes information about when the rulemaking was approved, how the CFTC commissioners voted, and references to the section of the Federal Register where the complete text of the rulemaking can be found.
Joanne Morrison is the deputy editor of Futures Industry . Before joining the magazine in August 2008, Joanne was a senior economic correspondent at Reuters, covering a broad range of issues regarding financial markets and the global economy.