For nearly three decades, if you settled an enforcement case with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the deal came with an unwritten gag order: you couldn’t publicly deny the allegations. That era is over.
The CFTC announced on June 3 that it has rescinded its longstanding “neither-admit-nor-deny” settlement policy, formally repealing Appendix A to Part 10 of its rules. The change means companies and individuals can now settle enforcement actions while simultaneously telling the world they did nothing wrong.
What changed and why it matters
The old policy, in place since 1998, worked like this: when a defendant agreed to settle with the CFTC, they couldn’t publicly admit or deny the agency’s allegations. The policy existed to encourage settlements. If defendants could deny everything publicly, the thinking went, it would undermine the deterrent effect of enforcement actions.
CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig framed the change as aligning the agency with broader government regulatory practices. The SEC rescinded a nearly identical rule on May 18, just two weeks earlier.
