Wall Street's biggest lobbying groups banded together to sue the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), seeking to curb the overseas reach of its rules and rein in a regulatory barrage by its departing Chairman Gary Gensler.

The suit, filed yesterday in federal court in Washington, seeks to overturn guidance the CFTC approved in July. The trade associations, which represent Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Deutsche Bank AG, and other swap dealers, say the agency illegally set regulations by issuing guidance documents and staff advisories rather than formal commission-approved rules.

In their court papers and in interviews, the groups said they felt pushed to the edge by Gensler, who has spent the past five years grappling with banks over the parameters of a more public marketplace for financial products that helped ignite the 2008 credit crisis.