Chamber of Commerce meets with CFTC chairman

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Yesterday a lobbyist and executives representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has criticized the whistleblower provisions in the Dodd-Frank financial law, met with Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to discuss the issue.

Under the new law, the CFTC is given the authority to award whistleblowers 10 to 30 percent of the amount recovered when information they provide leads to an enforcement action yielding sanctions of $1 million or more. They can also file for relief if they face retaliation for their disclosures.

"Put simply, the proposed rule creates a set of incentives that are skewed overwhelmingly in favor of direct reporting to the CFTC–even when companies are willing to, and fully capable of, addressing reports themselves," wrote the Chamber in its formal comment letter, submitted in early February, before the rule deadline.

The Project on Government Oversight has noted that a number of industry groups took a similar stance in their formal comment letters on the regulations, including the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the Futures Industry Association, and the Financial Services Roundtable, the Investment Company Institute.

The meeting record was released as part of the CFTC's policy of disclosing meetings with outside groups in relation to implementation of the Dodd-Frank law. So far, the Chamber is the only group recorded to have met with agency officials about the whistleblower provisions.