“The financial industry said many months ago that it would sue to stop any regulation it didn’t like.  So, no one should be surprised that Wall Street filed another suit today, this time to prevent anyone from regulating their commodity speculation,” said Dennis Kelleher, president and CEO of Better Markets, a nonprofit organization that promotes the public interest in the financial markets.  “It is very profitable for them, but harms every American family and farmer by driving up prices for everything from cereal to gas.”

“Contrary to industry claims used to protect their enormous profits, a mountain of independent studies, evidence and analysis have documented the damage Wall Street’s commodity trading activities have done,” Mr. Kelleher said.  “It is past time that this unregulated and incredibly destructive trading is stopped.”

“After months of careful deliberation, including input from the industry’s unrelenting lobbying, the CFTC passed a very narrow rule to limit only some of the damage from those trading activities.  But, even a well-considered and very limited regulation was too much for the big banks.  Suing to stop this modest regulation shows that the big banks are going to try to kill any regulation at all.  They are merely trying to use the courts to overrule regulators who are seeking to protect the public and prevent another financial crisis,” Mr. Kelleher said.

See Better Markets comment letter filed with the CFTC on position limits, which includes an analysis of all the research on position limits here

See Better Markets recent research on how commodity index funds distort the commodity markets and constantly push up commodity prices here

See Better Markets press release on the CFTC’s adoption of the position limit rule here