“In the long war over Wall Street regulation, a little-noticed clash erupted this week over a plan to rein in risky trading overseas.

Signs that a clash was brewing behind the scenes came after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission abruptly canceled a meeting to vote on the overseas trading proposal with just hours to spare. The agency provided no explanation, sending out only a short e-mail that it would “no longer hold a scheduled meeting on June 21, 2012.”

Interviews with regulators, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, show that the agency canceled the meeting after closed-door talks yielded a more flexible proposal that gives Wall Street additional time to comply. Now, rather than debating the issue in public, the commissioners plan to cast their votes in private over the next several days, according to people briefed on the matter.

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“”At the end of the day, democracy is a messy process,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, which supports tougher regulation of banks. “You get less-than-perfect outcomes from independent agencies.””

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