In prepared remarks at New York University’s School of Law on September 25, 2017, the newly minted Director of Enforcement at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission passionately outlined the contours of the CFTC’s new “self-reporting and cooperation” enforcement program.

In his first major speech since taking the helm of the Enforcement Division in March of this year, James McDonald reflected at the outset that an enforcement approach driven by reactive charging decisions was wholly incapable of fulfilling the CFTC’s stated mission of fostering open, transparent, competitive, and financially sound markets. McDonald suggested that the CFTC needed the “buy-in” of futures and options market participants in order to prevent wrongdoing and achieve “optimal deterrence.”