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Jeff Henderson, a former general counsel for a publicly traded futures commission merchant, has deep futures and derivatives industry experience. He focuses his practice on a variety of complex compliance, regulatory, investigation, litigation, and managed fund matters. This representation regularly involves futures, derivatives, swaps, forex, securities, cryptocurrency, binary options and prediction markets. He represents and advises a broad range of clients, including futures commission merchants, broker-dealers, investment advisers, commodity trading advisers, introducing brokers, forex trading firms, commodity pool operators, and hedge fund managers. He also provides counsel to a variety of industry participants, including traditional proprietary trading firms and exempt investment managers regarding disclosure matters and compliance obligations and regulatory and enforcement matters. Jeff also has significant experience advising funded-trader proprietary trading firms regarding a wide variety of structuring and regulatory matters. He is also regularly involved in defending members and member firms before CFTC, NFA, SEC and FINRA. His experience includes regulatory matters involving designated contract markets (DCM) and derivatives clearing organizations (DCO), particularly in the area of prediction markets offering event contracts, as well as currently serving as a public director and member of the Regulatory Oversight Committee for a U.S.-based DCM and a DCO involved in prediction markets.

On May 19, 2026, the CFTC’s Division of Enforcement replaced its 2025 tiered scoring matrix with a declination-first framework that imposes heightened self-reporting, cooperation, remediation, and restitution requirements on registrants seeking enforcement credit.…

Continue Reading CFTC Division of Enforcement Issues New Cooperation Policy

CFTC DoE Director David Miller highlighted prediction markets and crypto assets as perhaps the two most dynamic markets in finance during his March 2026 remarks at NYU Law School. …

Continue Reading Prediction Markets: A CFTC Enforcement Update

Prediction markets are electronic trading platforms where participants buy and sell interests in future event outcomes, from elections to economic indicators. Prices reflect aggregate probability, with event contracts typically offering binary yes or no outcomes.…

Continue Reading CFTC Regulatory Developments on Prediction Markets and Event Contracts

On Feb. 25, the CFTC’s Division of Enforcement released an advisory highlighting the benefits of self-reporting, cooperation, and remediation for violations of the Commodities Exchange Act. It refines the Division’s approach, guiding how these factors influence enforcement recommendations.…

Continue Reading CFTC Issues Enforcement Advisory on Benefits of Self-Reporting, Cooperation, and Remediation

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) undertook a series of initiatives in 2024 to address CFTC registrants’ and other industry participants’ use and application of AI technologies. While these actions do not constitute formal rulemaking or adoption of new regulations, they underscore CFTC’s continued awareness of and attention to the potential benefits and risks of…

On Sept. 12, 2024, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) took another step toward limiting the availability and scope of relief provided by CFTC Regulation 4.7 (Reg. 4.7) under the Commodity Exchange Act, as amended (CEA). Although the changes adopted in the final rule (Final Rule) are less comprehensive than those the CFTC…

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On June 25, 2020, the five commissioners of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), by a vote of three-to-two, withdrew proposed Regulation Automated Trading (Reg. AT), and by a vote of four-to-one, proposed a set of three new rules (Risk Principles) addressing electronic trading. In this process, CFTC moved substantially away from the earlier proposal,…

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On March 21, 2019, in Whitaker v. Wedbush Securities, an Illinois appellate court for the first time addressed the liability of a futures commission merchant (FCM) or broker-dealer (BD) under Section 4A-105 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC).

By way of background, a customer of an FCM dually registered as a BD ostensibly requested…