Washington, D.C. – Dennis Kelleher, President and CEO of Better Markets, issued this statement in response to Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Timothy Massad’s remarks on the need for strong cross border regulation today:

“We welcome Chairman Massad’s commitment to strong cross border regulation that stops the global derivatives dealers from searching the world for the biggest loopholes for their high-risk trading. As the trillions of dollars in Wall Street bailouts in 2008 proved, he clearly knows that a race to the global regulatory bottom serves no one but the biggest banks and that outsourcing the protection of American taxpayers to foreign regulations is unacceptable.

In particular, his idea of promoting the use of margin to address the serious problem of banks attempting to evade U.S. rules by making cosmetic changes to their corporate structure, a legal slight-of-hand known as ‘de-guaranteeing,’ is encouraging. Of course, margin rules alone cannot fix this problem because that still leaves too many high-risk transactions that pose a dangerous threat to U.S. taxpayers outside the reach of U.S. regulators. In addition, Chairman Massad must remain vigilant and ensure that any ‘substituted compliance’ is comparable in form, substance, enforcement, and over time. America’s families, workers, businesses and taxpayers have suffered enough and deserve no less.

We are looking forward to analyzing and commenting on the specifics of the CFTC’s rule when it is proposed. We will, in particular, carefully review any substituted compliance proposals as well as the ways in which the CFTC meaningfully employs margin as an important tool to combat de-guaranteeing and other unacceptable high-risk trading and gambling.”

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Better Markets is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes the public interest in financial reform in the domestic and global capital and commodity markets. Better Markets advocates for transparency, oversight and accountability with the goal of a stronger, safer financial system that is less prone to crisis and failure thereby eliminating or minimizing the need for more taxpayer funded bailouts. To learn more, visit www.bettermarkets.com.