WASHINGTON – Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, applauded today’s decision by the D.C. Court of Appeals upholding a rule by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) requiring the registration of offshore commodity pools that, prior to the rule, were exempt from CFTC oversight. Under Levin’s leadership, the subcommittee has conducted a series of hearings on excessive speculation in U.S. commodity markets. Levin said the following:
“Today’s unanimous court decision appropriately upholds a CFTC regulation which the Chamber of Commerce and mutual fund industry sought to block. As a result, mutual funds using offshore shell corporations to speculate in commodities will have to stop dodging CFTC oversight and instead register their offshore commodity operations, disclose their trading activities, and comply with CFTC safeguards against fraud, excessive speculation, and price manipulation. Commodity related mutual funds will finally have to comply with the same investor safeguards as all other commodity firms.”
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