Two and a half weeks after creating the Chief Market Intelligence Officer position, the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Committee has tapped 30-year industry veteran Andrew Busch to fill it.
Busch, who starts April 10, most recently was the founder and CEO of boutique research firm Bering Productions.
In his new role, he will engage with the CFTC's Market Intelligence Unit as well as with market participants, industry analysts, economists, and policy makers. He also will report to Chairman Giancarlo directly.
Andrew Busch, CFTC
“The new Chief Market Intelligence Officer will help activates the CFTC’s latent capabilities for market intelligence, giving us a better insight into the needs of participants in the futures and swaps we oversee,” said Giancarlo in a prepared statement.
Earlier this year Giancarlo moved the Market Intelligence Unit to the CFTC's Division of Enforcement from its Divison of Market Oversight.
“By separating the two units – surveillance within DOE and market intelligence within DMO – we will sharpen our surveillance capability while increasing our knowledge of evolving market structures and practices to inform sound policymaking at the Commission and promote efficient and sound markets,” he stated during his address to the Futures Industry Association's annual conference in mid-March. “The overall goal is to make the CFTC more adept in each of the two disciplines.”
"The better-armed regulators can be, with actionable data from the market, around venues, flows, types of trades, and legal entities, the better the regulators can be to oversee the derivatives markets,” Brad Bailey, research director, securities & investment at Celent, told Markets Media. “The interaction with other products, markets, and closely related products will also be a key part of this role in light of a morphing regulatory environment.”
The MIU will maintain its authority and responsibility that it had in the DMO to identify and recommend the prosecution of individuals and firms for violating laws and regulations for infractions like spoofing, manipulation, and fraud, according to the regulator.
Busch's appointment is the second high-profile appointment announced by Giancarlo in recent weeks.
During the FIA conference, he also announced that Mike Gill would be the CFTC's Regulatory Reform Officer and would lead the CFTC's review of existing regulations for potential simplification under the rubric Project KISS.
“Let me be very clear, this exercise is not about identifying existing rules for repeal or even rewrite,” said Giancarlo at the time. “It is about taking our existing rules as they are and applying them in ways that are simpler, less burdensome and less of a drag on the American economy.”
