Commodity Futures Trading Commission CFTC

The CFTC is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission which has the mission to protect market users and the public from fraud, manipulation, and abusive practices related to the sale of commodity and financial futures and options, and to foster open, competitive, and financially sound futures and option markets.

Congress created in the CFTC in 1974 as an independent agency with the mandate to regulate commodity futures and option markets in the United States. The agency's mandate has been renewed and expanded several times since then, most recently by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA). Today, the CFTC assures the economic utility of the futures markets by encouraging their competitiveness and efficiency, ensuring their integrity, protecting market participants against manipulation, abusive trading practices, and fraud, and ensuring the financial integrity of the clearing process. Through effective oversight, the CFTC enables the futures markets to serve the important function of providing a means for price discovery and offsetting price risk.

The CFTC has 6 major operating units:

1. Division of Clearing and Intermediary Oversight
2. Division of Market Oversight
3. Division of Enforcement
4. Office of Chief Economist
5. Office of the General Counsel
6. Office of the Executive Director