CFTC Enforcement Priorities, Insider Trading in the Prediction Markets, and Cooperation with the CFTC

As prepared

Introduction

Good evening. As a proud NYU Law alum, it gives me great pleasure to be here and to be speaking from this side of the lectern. Thank you to NYU Law School and the Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement for having me speak this evening. And a special thanks to Joe Facciponti and Jennifer Arlen for arranging this event.

I am honored to be here in my capacity as the new Director of Enforcement for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission ("CFTC"). I am incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to return to public service. Since 2014, I have been in private practice as a litigation partner at two global law firms, Morgan Lewis and Greenberg Traurig. But before returning to private practice, I spent a decade in public service. In particular, I had the good fortune to be a federal prosecutor in multiple offices of the Department of Justice. I was most recently an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where I spent over half my time as a member of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force. I also served as a terrorism prosecutor with the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, and as an Assistant General Counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency. My approach to enforcement will draw heavily upon my experiences as a prosecutor and as a defense lawyer: focusing on the most serious cases and moving decisively, but also acting fairly, justly, and transparently.

This is a very exciting time for the CFTC. From our roots as an agricultural futures regulator, we now oversee derivatives markets in a wide variety of areas: agriculture, metals, energy products, financial products, and the over $400 trillion notional-value swaps markets. And we are at the forefront of regulating prediction markets and crypto assets-perhaps the two most dynamic markets in finance.

Our mission in the Division of Enforcement is to safeguard all these markets. But let me start off by saying this clear as can be: The era of regulation by enforcement is over. Under Chairman Selig's leadership, we will focus on the Division's core purpose of policing fraud, abuse, and manipulation rather than setting policy. And tonight, I am going to describe some of the key ways that we as a Division will be doing our job.

First, I am going to outline our enforcement priorities going forward. We will have five priority areas: (i) insider trading (including in the prediction markets); (ii) market manipulation (particularly in the energy markets); (iii) market abuse/disruptive trading; (iv) retail fraud (including Ponzi schemes); and (v) willful violations of Anti-Money Laundering ("AML") and Know-Your-Customer ("KYC") laws and rules.

Second, I'm going to discuss insider trading in the prediction markets. Unfortunately, there is a myth in the mainstream media and social media that insider trading law doesn't apply in the prediction markets. That is wrong. As I will discuss, insider trading violates the Commodity Exchange Act (the "CEA") and our regulations' anti-fraud provisions. I have done a lot of work in insider trading matters both as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney, and I take insider trading extremely seriously. Insider trading in the prediction markets-where there is misappropriated information-is precisely the kind of serious violation that we are going after vigorously. We will aggressively detect, investigate, and, where appropriate, prosecute insider trading in the prediction markets.

Third, I am announcing that we will be issuing a new cooperation policy advisory soon. Tonight, I will detail key elements of that policy, including significant changes to our declination policy.

The CFTC's Enforcement Priorities: Fraud; Market Manipulation; and Other Serious Violations

Let me begin with our enforcement priorities. Under Chairman Selig's leadership, our enforcement program will relentlessly focus on serious violations, especially fraud and market manipulation. As I just previewed, we have five areas of focus.

First, we will focus closely on insider trading. Insider trading is illegal under the CEA and our regulations in all our markets-including the prediction markets. It has serious consequences for market integrity and trust. It is not a victimless offense. As I will discuss later, our insider trading authority is about the misappropriation of material non-public information-and thus involves the use of information in violation of a duty owed to the source of that information.

Now, we are fully aware that our markets are price-discovery markets, not disclosure-based markets. Market participants are entitled to use their own knowledge and information to make trading decisions. For example, we want the farm cooperative that sees issues with a harvest to be able to hedge its position. To be clear, we will only be prosecuting cases against those who tip or trade with misappropriated information. I will discuss more about this in a minute.

Our second priority is market manipulation. Fighting market manipulation is fundamental to a market regulator's mission. Properly functioning markets are efficient, create appropriate prices for essential goods, and provide accurate price signals. But market manipulation can drive up costs, distort price signals, erode trust, and impose costs on consumers. We will investigate market manipulation aggressively where we have good reason. And we will prosecute aggressively where we find such manipulation.

Market manipulation in the energy markets is particularly-and perhaps uniquely-harmful. Energy markets have, as an economist might say, inelastic demand and limited substitutability. Basically, people still have to buy gas when the price goes up-you can't drive a car on air. Thus, the cost of market manipulation can be felt by many consumers. Price increases in energy markets can also have broad inflationary effects because energy costs ripple through the economy, affecting many goods in both production and shipping. And energy is more difficult than many other commodities to store-it is far easier to store copper than jet fuel. In sum, it is very challenging for energy markets to adapt to changing cost levels and we will not allow them to be manipulated.

Energy prices are, of course, influenced by geopolitical events, including recent ones. Futures markets are critical for managing price volatility and risk. But when volatility and high prices occur, they are tempting to would-be manipulators. Be advised: we continue to scrutinize these markets and remain focused here. We will prosecute wrongdoing in this area.

Importantly, we are not alone in this fight. The exchanges are a critical line of defense. As we emphasized in our recent staff advisories and our notice of proposed rulemaking on prediction markets, exchanges have important obligations under our core principles relevant to insider trading and market manipulation. These include obligations to have appropriate surveillance, compliance practices and procedures, promote fair and equitable trading, protect markets from abusive practices, and, importantly, to only list contracts that are not susceptible to manipulation.[1]The exchanges doing their job are an essential part of the fight against market manipulation and insider trading. And we expect the exchanges to do their part.

Exchanges are important partners. But they are not our only partners. We work closely with the SEC, self-regulatory organizations, and state regulators. We also work closely with federal criminal authorities at the Department of Justice and make criminal referrals as appropriate. As a former prosecutor, I know exactly how significant criminal authority engagement can be in our investigations.

The third priority area is fighting market abuse, which can be a form of manipulation.[2] This includes spoofing, disruptive trading during a closing period, and wash trading. We fight these illegal practices for the same reason that we fight other market manipulation. Functioning markets provide price transparency and the fairest prices, and there are rules to make sure markets function. Breaking those rules reduces efficiency, distorts price signals, and can raise prices. We are watching and will take action when necessary.

Fourth, we will continue to fight retail fraud in its various forms, from Ponzi schemes to commodity pool frauds, pig-butchering, impersonation frauds, and "phishing" attacks directed at individuals. This area is especially important because retail fraud often targets at-risk populations-the elderly, those with limited financial literacy, and, frequently, the individuals who can least afford to lose their savings. We thus have a large task force dedicated to this priority. Now, I know that retail fraud is a persistent problem. Sadly, there are always fraudsters committing the same old frauds using new techniques and new tools. We have seen AI-created images and videos, targeted communications on social media platforms, and fake websites and phone applications that duplicate the websites and apps of major banks and crypto asset firms. We will continue to aggressively use technology and our specialized know-how to fight these evolving techniques. And we will litigate these cases hard, as we are currently doing in Traders Domain, which, according to our complaint, involves sixteen defendants in a $283 million Ponzi scheme run through bogus online platforms.[3]

The fifth priority is prosecuting willful failures to follow anti-money laundering and know-your-customer laws and rules. These are crucial rules-key tools in fighting crime and protecting our markets. We are not prioritizing technical violations, but rather those who willfully decide to break these essential laws. AML and KYC laws are essential in combatting terrorism, narcotrafficking, fraud, and other serious illegal activity. And we will not tolerate any entity we regulate willfully violating those laws. As you might expect, we will also initiate criminal referrals here as appropriate.

There is one thing I would like to mention about other areas of enforcement I have not discussed today. Even within those areas, including compliance, if we have someone who repeatedly violates the CEA and our rules, and/or does so willfully, we are not going to sit idly by-we are going to do something about it. But as for our priorities that I have laid out, each of the five areas reflects our core mission: protecting market integrity by targeting fraud, abuse, and manipulation. We are committed to addressing these priority areas and we will be hiring additional staff in the Division of Enforcement to help address them.

Insider Trading in the Prediction Markets

Now, I would like to expand on insider trading, particularly as it applies to the prediction markets.

For those new to the prediction markets, a prediction market is an exchange in which participants buy or sell contracts based on the outcome of future events. For example, a contract pays out $1 if an event happens-say, one candidate wins the election-so a $0.60 cost means the market thinks there is roughly a sixty percent probability of the event happening. The CFTC has said that prediction markets "function as information aggregation vehicles" because the contract prices will reflect the market participants' aggregate beliefs regarding whether the events will occur.[4]

Unfortunately, a myth has spread that insider trading is permissible-even encouraged-in the prediction markets. Prominent individuals in finance, the media, and on social media have contended that insider trading law does not apply in these markets. Some have suggested that insider trading is inevitable or beneficial because it gives people with confidential information a financial incentive to trade on it, thus releasing the information to the public. These comments all suggest that insider trading is an important and acceptable part of the prediction markets ecosystem.

Not so. Insider trading in the commodity futures and swap markets is prohibited by the CEA and relevant CFTC regulations. And this is not some abstract theory; the prohibition on insider trading in commodity markets involves a straightforward application of the law.

To walk through the analysis, Section 6(c)(1) and Rule 180.1 were created as part of the Dodd-Frank reforms as part of a deliberate effort to expand the CFTC's authority. They are explicitly modeled after Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and SEC Rule 10b-5.[5] Now, insider trading law is largely based on judicial interpretations of the anti-fraud provisions of Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5. Specifically, courts have long held that insider trading is a type of fraud prohibited by those provisions. Section 6(c)(1) and Rule 180.1 thus incorporate the anti-fraud provisions, and insider trading, into the commodity, futures, and swap markets.

To delve deeper, insider trading is defined by two judicially created theories: the classical theory and the misappropriation theory. The classical theory prohibits corporate insiders from breaching a duty they owe to the company's shareholders by trading on material non-public information ("MNPI") opposite those shareholders. This is unlikely to apply under the CEA. But the misappropriation theory does apply. Under the misappropriation theory, liability attaches when an individual: (1) possesses material non-public information; (2) misappropriates that information by trading on or tipping in breach of a duty of trust and confidence owed to the source of the information; and (3) does so with scienter.[6] In the CEA context, such trading must be in connection with a contract for sale or purchase of a commodity, future, or swap in interstate commerce.

We have applied insider trading law to our jurisdictional products consistent with what Congress intended us to do. This is not new. For example, in the recently concluded Clark matter, we prosecuted a futures trader at a Texas energy company who turned his employer's order book into a private tip sheet, feeding confidential trading information to an outside trader who traded against Clark's own employer and kicked profits back. DOJ charged Clark criminally for the same conduct.[7] Likewise, the Ruggles matter involved an individual who ran a major airline's fuel-hedging program. At the same time the individual was executing crude oil, heating oil, and gasoline trades for his employer, he was secretly running the same trades through personal accounts in his wife's name, pocketing $3.5 million.[8] And Motazedi, the first CFTC insider trading case, involved a gasoline trader at a large public company in Chicago who knew every trade his employer planned to make-and used that knowledge to front-run those trades and place opposite-side orders against his own employer.[9] Each of these cases resulted in substantial monetary penalties, disgorgement, and permanent trading bans.

Now, moving to prediction markets, the only question is whether certain recent event contracts are derivatives subject to our anti-fraud provisions. And while there is ongoing litigation with regard to these event contracts, the clear statutory reading and the Agency's view, as recently stated publicly in a proposed rulemaking and a staff advisory on prediction markets, is that these and other event contracts are swaps under the broad statutory definition of a swap.[10] The CEA's anti-fraud provisions apply with full force to swaps. Thus, Section 6(c)(1) and Rule 180.1 prohibit insider trading in the prediction markets.[11]

Insider trading is potentially happening in prediction markets. Consider a recent example from Kalshi, a regulated Designated Contract Market or DCM. Last summer, an individual traded a contract related to a YouTube channel while having an employment relationship with the subject of the contract. The trader appeared to have access to material non-public information related to his trades-in violation of exchange rules.[12]

And there are other areas of potential concern. One such area concerns contracts based on the actions or status of a person or small group of people.[13] Injury contracts, for example, present both manipulation and insider trading risk. On the manipulation side, a player could injure another player to collect on a contract. On the insider trading side, those with advance, non-public knowledge of an injury-say a trainer-could use that information to trade. That trading could be in violation of a duty of confidentiality.

This is a perfect area to highlight the role of exchanges-our first lines of defense-in stopping insider trading and manipulation. Our recent advisory on prediction markets suggests some of the steps prediction markets can take regarding these contracts. For example, the advisory asks exchanges to consider whether such contracts have a heightened risk of manipulation or price distortion before listing. And it encourages exchanges to look at steps relevant to fighting manipulation and insider trading such as reviewing league-maintained lists of individuals who should be barred from trading sports-related event contracts, establishing information-sharing arrangements with the leagues and integrity monitoring organizations, and cooperating with league-run investigations into manipulation or insider trading.[14] At the CFTC we are taking similar steps to protect the integrity of event contracts. For example, we recently announced a Memorandum of Understanding with Major League Baseball ("MLB"), providing a mechanism for the CFTC and MLB to exchange information and protect event contracts relating to professional baseball from fraud, manipulation, and other abuses.[15] So we will be active in this area, but the exchanges, who certify the contracts and have other statutory and regulatory obligations, need to do their jobs as well.

The concerns are not limited to injury contracts; there are many other contracts that can be subject to abuse. We are aware of the speculation about insider trading that you see in the media, in chatrooms, and elsewhere. We are watching.

I would mention another potential area of prosecution: the illegal use of government information to trade. This has been an area pursued over the years by other regulators and prosecutors, like the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. As a general matter, many government employees, including members of Congress and a great many executive branch employees, are subject to the STOCK Act and forbidden from using and trading on MNPI gained through their position. We will be policing the illegal use of government information in the prediction markets, in violation of the anti-fraud provisions I referenced earlier.

But in addition to those anti-fraud provisions, when it comes to government information, the CFTC can also prosecute under Section 4c(a)(4) of the CEA-the so-called "Eddie Murphy Rule."[16] The rule is named for Murphy's role in Trading Places where his character, Billy Ray Valentine, made a fortune with a stolen government crop report. The rule prohibits government employees from trading based on MNPI relating to government action while having inside information.

These provisions and others like them subject a broad range of government employees to duties regarding MNPI-duties they might breach if they traded on that information. Again, it is the breach of duty that is key under insider trading laws.

And as I have noted, it is not just government information that is often protected by a legal duty. Information learned on the job and used in violation of the duty owed to an employer under a confidentiality agreement, NDA, or employment contract could be misappropriated if used for trading.[17] So, if an NBA team employee subject to a confidentiality agreement had non-public knowledge of a player's injury, the employee's trades on an event contract concerning that player's performance in the upcoming game could violate insider trading laws. So could trading based on the expected date of a highly anticipated product release.

Now, I have investigated, prosecuted, defended, and tried insider trading cases over my career. In my experience, those who hold MNPI are often subject to a web of legal and confidentiality obligations. With sports leagues or major corporations, chances are that trading on information you learn from work is going to breach duties of trust and confidence and subject you to insider trading liability.

I would also like to emphasize a couple of other points here.

The first is that this is only about misappropriated information. As I said before, in our markets, you are absolutely entitled to trade on MNPI that you rightfully own. You are not breaching a duty to the source of the information. Derivatives markets are primarily designed for risk management. We want market participants to be able to use their own information to protect themselves from financial harm and hedge their risk as they deem appropriate.

Second, we will exercise our prosecutorial discretion and not dedicate our resources to trivial cases or cases where there is no clear breach of duty.

Third, I have not provided an exhaustive list of our insider trading authorities. For example, I referenced the "Eddie Murphy Rule," which prohibits anyone from knowingly trading on stolen government information.[18] But the CFTC also has longstanding authority-sections 9(d) and 9(e) of the CEA-prohibiting insider trading for the misuse of information by the CFTC's own employees or those of the exchanges and self-regulatory organizations we oversee.[19] This provision applies broadly to exchange personnel.

A last point on prediction markets. This has only been a discussion of insider trading. We also have authority to bring cases under other provisions of the CEA-including for market manipulation, market abuse, and other fraudulent trading practices.

Staff Advisory on Cooperation

Let me now turn to Cooperation. The Division will soon be issuing a new Staff Advisory on Cooperation and will be rescinding the current policy, issued in February 2025. We are changing our policies to further incentivize cooperation, to simplify our approach, and, hopefully, to be fairer to the parties with which we interact.

There are three areas where I would like to highlight differences from our past policies, all of which are designed to ensure the rapid disposition of matters while appropriately crediting parties for their cooperation.

First, we are changing our declination policy for those who cooperate. We are committed to being transparent about the benefits of coming in voluntarily. We want to reward parties who make the right choice. Under our new policy, if an eligible party (i) self-reports (as will be defined in a moment), (ii) cooperates fully, and (iii) remediates fully, including committing to ongoing reporting of violative conduct, and follows our guidelines on remediation and disgorgement, then absent aggravating circumstances, we will give that party a clear path to a declination. We will issue declinations upon completion of a party's cooperation.

There will be some aggravating circumstances under which we will not offer such declinations. For example, pervasive intentional or reckless conduct by ownership or senior-most management may preclude eligibility (but not necessarily so). Recidivist activity involving intentional or reckless conduct may also preclude eligibility.

Second, we are clarifying how we assess self-reporting. Parties will be eligible for the declination program if they self-report in a prompt, timely, and good-faith fashion-even where the party needs more time to investigate-regardless of whether the CFTC already knew about the issue confidentially. This is based on our view of fundamental fairness. If you do the right thing every step of the way, why should your penalty depend on whether the Division had independently learned about an issue or not? But self-reports will not be eligible where the information is public or the party knows or suspects that there is an imminent disclosure from another source. This includes situations where the party knows or suspects that there is a whistleblower, a government investigation by another agency, a Self-Regulatory Organization investigation, or a press report. We will, however, continue to recognize self-reports for information that parties may also have to include in the mandatory annual chief compliance officer reports required of many of our registrants.[20]

Third, we will simplify how we evaluate cooperation. Cooperation will be binary. Like jumping into a lake; you're either in a hundred percent or you're out. You can choose to cooperate-in which case we expect full cooperation. That cooperation will include disclosing all relevant non-privileged information, sharing internal investigation findings without breaching privilege or work-product protections, making personnel available for interviews, preserving all records including ephemeral messages, undertaking good-faith efforts to secure documents located overseas, and, under our policy, continuing to report. Or you can choose not to cooperate fully, in which case we will always treat parties fairly, but you will lose the path to a declination.

Fourth, a party must remediate fully and take steps to both compensate victims and address corporate deficiencies. A party will have to demonstrate that they have analyzed the conduct, identified root causes, and remediated root causes where appropriate. The party will also have to implement appropriate changes to their compliance program. Remediation also includes, where appropriate, disciplining relevant employees, including both those responsible for the conduct and those with supervisory authority. To receive declinations, parties will also have to provide full restitution to injured parties. And parties will have to disgorge their ill-gotten gains.

We expect to issue our Staff Advisory on these and other topics in the near term, and update our Enforcement Manual accordingly, with the final text of that Advisory and the Manual taking precedence over anything I include in this speech. I also note that these statements do not intend to, do not, and may not be relied upon to create any rights, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law by any party in any matter, civil or criminal.

Concluding Thoughts

To conclude, I believe that all the policies and priorities we have discussed come from three fundamental principles, principles that I learned from well over two decades as a prosecutor and defense lawyer. First, the power of government should be used to fight serious violations-and for us that means focusing on the priorities I laid out, which at bottom are about fraud, abuse, and manipulation. The things the CFTC's Division of Enforcement should be focusing on. Not regulation by enforcement. Second, because government investigations by their nature impose hardships on parties, the government should move quickly, and we will do so. We will move efficiently, with a laser focus on serious violations and a willingness to reach declination decisions rapidly where eligible parties are willing to timely self-report and fully cooperate and remediate. And third, government needs to be fair. We will be fair and as transparent as we can be, making sure we treat every party before us the right way.

Under Chairman Selig's and my leadership, the Division of Enforcement will target the conduct that truly causes harm, pursue those cases with speed and toughness, and we will always, always do so with integrity.

Thank you and good night.

[1] See CEA § 5(d)(3), 7 U.S.C. § 7(d)(3) (designated contract markets' ("DCM") obligation to list for trading only derivative contracts that are not readily susceptible to manipulation); CEA § 5(d)(4), 7 U.S.C. § 7(d)(4) (prevention of manipulation, price distortion, and disruptions); CEA § 5(d)(12), 7 U.S.C. § 7(d)(12) (protection of markets from abusive practices).

[2] CEA § 4c(a)(2), 7 U.S.C. § 6c(a)(2) (prohibiting wash trading); CEA § 4c(a)(5)(B), 7 U.S.C.§ 6c(a)(5)(B) (prohibiting disruptive trading during the closing period); CEA § 4c(a)(5)(C), 7 U.S.C.§ 6c(a)(5)(C) (prohibiting spoofing).

[3] CFTC, Press Release No. 8997-24, CFTC Charges Several Persons and Companies in a $280 Million Ponzi Scheme (Oct. 15, 2024), https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8997-24.

[4] Concept Release on Appropriate Regulatory Treatment of Event Contracts, 73 Fed. Reg. 25,669, 25,670 (May 7, 2008).

[5] Section 753 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 amended CEA § 6(c), 7 U.S.C. § 9(1), to prohibit the use of "any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance" in connection with any swap or commodity transaction-language patterned directly on Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. § 78j(b). See Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n, Anti-Manipulation and Anti-Fraud Fact Sheet, https://www.cftc.gov/sites/default/files/idc/groups/public/@newsroom/documents/file/antimanipulation_factsheet.pdf ("The text of this new section prohibiting fraud based manipulation is patterned after section 10b of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934."). Pursuant to this authority, the CFTC promulgated Rule 180.1, 17 C.F.R. § 180.1, a "broad, catch-all provision" intentionally modeled on SEC Rule 10b-5, 17 C.F.R. § 240.10b-5, which the CFTC interprets to prohibit, among other things, trading on the basis of material non-public information in breach of a pre-existing duty of trust and confidence. See Prohibition on the Employment, or Attempted Employment, of Manipulative and Deceptive Devices and Prohibition on Price Manipulation, 76 Fed. Reg. 41,398, 41,399, 41,403 (July 14, 2011).

[6] United States v. O'Hagan, 521 U.S. 642, 652-55 (1997); see also Salman v. United States, 580 U.S. 39, 41-42 (2016) (reaffirming the O'Hagan framework and confirming that in a tipping case a gift of confidential information to a trading relative satisfies the personal-benefit requirement); United States v. Chow, 993 F.3d 125, 134-39 (2d Cir. 2021) (holding that a non-disclosure agreement created a duty of trust and confidence sufficient to support insider trading liability under the misappropriation theory).

[7] CFTC v. Clark, No. 4:22-cv-00365 (S.D. Tex. filed Feb. 3, 2022; consent order Jan. 29, 2026), https://www.cftc.gov/media/13171/ENFClarkConsentOrder012926/download; see also indictment, United States v. Clark, No. 4:22-cr-00055 (S.D. Tex. filed Feb. 3, 2022). On March 15, 2024, Matthew Clark pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343 and 1346, prohibited commodities transactions, in violation of 7 U.S.C. §§ 6c(a)(2), 13(a)(2), and insider trading, in violation of 7 U.S.C. §§ 9(a)(1), 13(a)(5), and 17 C.F.R. § 180.1 See Plea Agreement, United States v. Clark, No. 4:22-cr-00055 (S.D. Tex. filed Mar. 15, 2024).

[8] In re Jon P. Ruggles, CFTC Docket No. 16-34 (Sept. 29, 2016) (violations of CEA §§ 4b(a), 4c(a), 6(c)(1) and 17 C.F.R. §§ 1.38(a), 33.10(a) and (c), and 180.1).

[9] In re Arya Motazedi, CFTC Docket No. 16-02 (Dec. 2, 2015) (violations of CEA §§ 4b(a), 4c(a), 6(c)(1) and 17 C.F.R. §§ 1.38(a), 180.1).

[10] Prediction Markets, 91 Fed. Reg. 12,516, 12517 (Mar. 16, 2026) (advance notice of proposed rulemaking, noting that "event contracts can fall within multiple subsections of the CEA's definition of 'swap.'"); CFTC, Div. of Mkt. Oversight, Staff Letter No. 26-08, Prediction Markets Advisory, at 2 (Mar. 12, 2026), https://www.cftc.gov/csl/26-08/download.

[11] CEA § 6(c)(1), 7 U.S.C. § 9(1).

[12] CFTC, Press Release No. 9158-26, CFTC Enforcement Division Issues Prediction Markets Advisory (Feb. 25, 2026), https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9158-26 (advisory issued following two enforcement cases on KalshiEX, a Designated Contract Market, involving misuse of non-public information in event contract trading).

[13] See CFTC Staff Letter No. 26-08, supra note 10, at 4.

[14] Id. at 5-6.

[15] CFTC, Press Release No. 9199-26, CFTC and MLB Sign Groundbreaking MOU (Mar. 19, 2026), https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9199-26.

[16] CEA § 4c(a)(4), 7 U.S.C. § 6c(a)(4).

[17] Chow, 993 F.3d at 134-39.

[18] CEA § 4c(a)(4), 7 U.S.C. § 6c(a)(4).

[19] CEA § 9(d), 7 U.S.C. § 13(d) (prohibiting use of nonpublic information obtained at work for trading by "any Commissioner of the Commission or any employee or agent thereof"); CEA § 9(e), 7 U.S.C. § 13(e) (prohibiting the same for "an employee . . . of a board of trade, registered entity, swap data repository, or registered futures association").

[20] See 17 C.F.R. § 3.3(e), (f) (2026) (CCO annual report requirements for futures commission merchants, swap dealers, and major swap participants); 17 C.F.R. § 37.1501(d), (e) (2026) (CCO annual report requirements for swap execution facilities); 17 C.F.R. § 49.22(e), (f) (2026) (CCO annual report requirements for swap data repositories).