Senate Confirmations Will Finally Give CFTC a Full House

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will soon fill its empty seats. After months of delays, the Senate on Tuesday confirmed all three of President Barack Obama’s nominees. Timothy Massad, picked to replace former chairman Gary Gensler, is a former Treasury Department official. Prior to joining Treasury, Massad was a partner with the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York. He left the firm from December 2008 to February 2009 to assist the newly formed Congressional Oversight Panel, then headed by Elizabeth Warren, one of the oversight agencies for Troubled Asset Relief Program. Sharon Bowen, a Democrat, is currently a partner in the New York office of Latham & Watkins and serves as acting chair of the board of directors for the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, which helps recover money to investors with assets in the hands of bankrupt and financially troubled brokerage firms. She will be the first African-American CFTC commissioner. More in Compliance Week here.