In last week’s Cabinet News and Views, we examined
the U.S. regulators’ approach to the digital asset space, with
a focus on the
assertion of jurisdiction by the CFTC, the SEC, prudential
regulators, state executive and legislative branches, and
Congressional initiatives. This week, our focus shifts to
enforcement − what actions the various regulators are taking
in the digital asset space and what we can expect to see in the
near future.
CFTC Enforcement Actions
Over the past few years, the CFTC brought a number of
enforcement actions against participants in the digital asset
markets using its regulatory authority over the U.S. commodity
derivatives markets, which included allegations of running an
unregistered swap execution facility (a “SEF”) and/or
designated contract market (a “DCM”) and a derivatives
clearing organization (“DCO”), failure to register with
the CFTC as a futures commission merchant (an “FCM”), a
commodity pool operator (a “CPO”) and/or a commodity
trading advisor (a “CTA”), as well as fraud, market
manipulation and some other charges. Some of those actions are
discussed below. As the CFTC ramped up its enforcement efforts in
this area, the amounts of civil monetary penalties imposed by the
CFTC increased from nominal in early cases to tens and even
hundreds of millions of dollars in more recent cases. Again, as
noted above, CFTC’s enforcement actions relate to cases that
are clear under the existing authorities, while…
