The acting chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Caroline Pham, announced that the agency is moving away from an enforcement-driven regulatory strategy. The new approach will focus on preventing market manipulation and combating fraud.
Previous regulatory policies, which were fragmented into areas such as insider trading, cybersecurity breaches, and environmental fraud, have been completely overhauled. The new system establishes two main task forces. The complex fraud task force will investigate fraud cases across all asset classes and handle major legal cases, while the retail fraud and general enforcement task force will focus on fraud and regulatory violations affecting individual investors.
Pham stated that the new structure will eliminate unnecessary penalties and specifically target bad actors. This regulatory shift aims to foster a more transparent and secure market environment.
This move aligns with recent changes at the SEC. Recently, SEC acting chair Mark Uyeda announced that the agency would establish clearer regulatory frameworks, marking a departure from the previous administration’s enforcement-heavy approach, which had created uncertainty in the market.
