Wall Street reform expert to talk at Notre Dame

Wall Street reform, the “flash crash,” CEO pay and other hot-button financial topics will be the subject of a talk at the University of Notre Dame by Bart Chilton, a commissioner with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Chilton’s talk, “Fighting Futures” will take place at 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 1 in the Mendoza College of Business Jordan Auditorium. The talk, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Financial Regulation at the Mendoza College, is free and open to the public.

The CFTC is an independent federal agency charged with the regulation of commodity futures and option markets. As a commissioner, Chilton has responsibility for the rulemaking and implementation following the sweeping Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

“The unregulated OTC derivatives market and especially ‘swaps’ were a major component of the financial meltdown we experienced two years ago and are still living with today,” said Chilton in a statement. “Bringing those trades out of the dark will go a long way toward keeping us out of another financial mess. Transparency will make these markets more efficient and that’s important for consumers who rely on them to determine the price of almost everything they buy – from a gallon of gas to a gallon of milk or orange juice, to the interest rate on a home mortgage or car loan.”

The CFTC also worked with the SEC and other agencies to analyze what caused the market crash on May 6, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly plunged about 600 points, only to recover nearly all its value within 10 minutes.

Chilton was nominated to the commission by President Bush and confirmed by the U. S. Senate in 2007. In 2009, he was re-nominated by President Obama and reconfirmed by the Senate. He has served as the Chairman of the CFTC’s Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee (EEMAC). His career spans 25 years in government service—working on Capitol Hill in the House of Representatives, in the Senate, and serving in the Executive Branch during the Clinton, Bush and Obama Administrations.

The Center for the Study of Financial Regulation promotes sound economic analysis of current and proposed financial regulation through greater interaction between practitioners, regulators and academics. For more information, visit the Center’s website. 

For more information about Bart Chilton’s talk, contact Paul Schultz, John W. and Maude Clark Professor of Finance, at (574) 631-3338 or Paul.H.Schultz.19@nd.edu.

/news_and_events/news_articles/article/7831/wall-street-reform-expert-to-talk-at-notre-dame