The swaps cops are back on the beat in full force.

After a six-month wait, the U.S. Senate yesterday confirmed TimothyMassad to serve as chairman of the Commodity Futures TradingCommission (CFTC) as lawmakers moved to bring the derivativesregulator to a full roster by signing off on two additionalnominees.

The Senate approved Massad and J. Christopher Giancarlo, anexecutive at inter-dealer broker GFI Group Inc., in a series ofvoice votes. Sharon Y. Bowen, a lawyer at Latham & Watkins LLP,was confirmed as a commissioner in a 48-46 vote amid oppositionfrom Republicans and a handful of Democrats.

The three new members will join a panel working to finish a job,now in its sixth year, of bringing oversight to swaps blamed forigniting the 2008 financial crisis. Started as an overseer ofagricultural and commodity trading, the CFTC was empowered by the2010 Dodd-Frank Act to bring a broad new set of rules to swaps thatpreviously were largely unregulated.

“The Dodd-Frank Act greatly expanded the scope of the CFTC'sauthority, and there are still many important issues that need tobe addressed in the implementation of that law,” Walt Lukken,president and chief executive of FIA, previously known as theFutures Industry Association, said in a statement. “So it is allthe more important that the CFTC have a full complement ofcommissioners at this critical moment in its history.”

The law, and regulations put in place under previous chairmanGary Gensler, gave the CFTC new authority over trading by GoldmanSachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Deutsche Bank AG, andother firms.

The new members will join current commissioners Mark P. Wetjen,who has been serving as acting chairman since January, and ScottO'Malia, a Republican who has been at the agency since October2009.

“I look forward to working with these three new commissioners.I'm sure they are eager to get to work on the pressing issuesbefore the commission,” O'Malia said yesterday.

The three new members of the CFTC will take office as WallStreet is pressing for rollbacks of rules approved under Gensler,saying some are unworkable. Budget constraints threaten the CFTC's ability to overseemarkets and have led to a restive staff taking steps to join alabor union.

Massad, 57, attended Harvard Law School and spent 25 years atthe Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP law firm, where he focused oncorporate finance including securities, banking, and derivatives.He was tapped by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2010 to administerthe Troubled Asset Relief Program that rescued Wall Street banksafter the financial crisis.

Senate Opposition

Bowen's confirmation was opposed by 42 Republicans and foursenators who caucus with the Democrats, including VermontIndependent Bernie Sanders.

“We need regulators who will have the courage to stop thelargest Wall Street banks in this country from driving up oilprices in the energy futures market,” Sanders said in a statementafter the vote. “After reviewing her record and those of two othernominees, I am afraid that none of them will make sure that theprice of gasoline and heating oil is based on supply and demand andnot Wall Street greed.”

Some senators, including Louisiana Republican David Vitter,opposed Bowen's confirmation because of her role overseeing theSecurities Investor Protection Corp. (SIPC), an industry-fundedpanel that ruled against compensating victims of the R. AllenStanford Ponzi scheme.

“After Stanford victims were ripped off through that fraudulentPonzi scheme, Sharon Bowen ripped them off again by refusing totake action at SIPC,” Vitter said in a statement after Bowen'sconfirmation. “And today she was rewarded for that with apromotion.”

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