WASHINGTON: Elected President Joe Biden is expected to elect Gary Gensler, a former financial regulator and executive at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to people familiar with the decision.
Mr. Gensler’s nomination would like the Liberal Democrats who applauded the former regulator’s harsh approach to rule-making during the Obama administration, when he led the Dodd-Frank Act-required derivatives market review. 2010 and oversaw enforcement actions against investment banks accused of manipulating benchmark interest rates.
Mr Gensler’s choice, which he refused to comment on, was not final and could still change, people said.
As head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2009 to 2014, Mr. Gensler developed a reputation among colleagues for articulation tactics while trying to create a regulatory framework for derivatives, a multi-trillion-dollar market under federal supervision. When he left the commission, the established rule was largely complete, years before other regulators finished their post-crisis work.
It was a surprising turnaround for the former Goldman executive who had previously resisted requests for additional regulation of derivatives when he served in the Treasury Department under President Clinton. The decision not to strictly regulate derivatives in the 1990s has been blamed for having contributed to the financial crisis a decade later.