Electronic Exchanges

10. Regulators: Leadership and Reaction

Andrea M. Corcoran

Principal, Align International, LLCFormer Division Director of the CFTC

Executive Summary

Regulators had to react to fundamental changes in the nature of exchanges, but they also at times were leaders of market change. For example, the response to the push for principles-based regulation granted exchanges more flexibility to design markets and products in thoughtful, cost-effective ways. The U.S. CFTC crafted a creative answer to the desire of foreign markets to place their terminals in the United States, an approach that permitted foreign competition but in a fashion that still protected U.S. customers and other public interests.

In the past turbulent decade, exchanges triumphed economically, ...