At the joint SEC–CFTC roundtable held on September 29, former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins said the two agencies should end decades of regulatory fragmentation by coordinating more closely on oversight.
The SEC and CFTC have already published the agenda for this joint roundtable, outlining panels on agency history, trading platforms, and the role of market participants in evolving regulation.
The roundtable includes discussions on how to define the boundaries between securities and commodities oversight and how to handle areas of overlapping authority.
Atkins’s Speech
Atkins argued that parallel and sometimes conflicting rulebooks have increased costs for investors and pushed innovation overseas. He framed the discussion as a “turning point” in U.S. financial market history, calling for harmonization rather than a merger of the agencies, which would require congressional action.
“Our focus is on harmonization, not on a merger of the SEC and the CFTC,” Atkins said. “The path forward right now is collaboration, not consolidation.”
He noted that companies often move operations abroad to avoid conflicting rules, while investors deal with overlapping requirements that tie up capital. According to Atkins, coordination between the agencies could transform dual oversight from “a source of confusion into a source of strength.”
Looking ahead, Atkins linked the effort to maintaining U.S. leadership in financial innovation. He pointed to the convergence of securities and commodities markets and said the agencies must operate “side-by-side, hand-in-glove” to ensure that new products, including blockchain-based assets, develop under consistent rules.
The roundtable will also include discussions on the historical evolution of the agencies’ jurisdictions and specific areas of overlap that continue to create uncertainty for market participants.
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