The discussion of the various reasons that the rule would seem unlikely to be successful begins on page 17 of the GAO report. Reading this discussion should give one pause as to whether this rule is worthwhile, however well-intentioned it may be. Query: Could the money spent on complying with the rule be devoted to the cause in a manner better suited to achieving the worthy goal yet consistent with the amount of expense and effort?

This is a positive regulatory development in that it eliminates the need for individual options exchanges to prepare their own versions of an "options disclosure document" and to obtain their own no-action letters, processes that were relatively expensive and that did not seem to provide any meaningful benefit to investors. It is unlikely that institutional investors read the options disclosure documents or appreciated being protected from investing in certain options markets. All U.S.…

This case is significant from the standpoint of administrative law. Of similar significance, is the regulatory policy question: Is it really a good use of the CFTC's limited resources to impose double-regulation on SEC-registered investment companies? In a world of limited governmental resources, this is a policy choice that seems almost impossible to justify. In today's news, we cover the CFTC's request for an increase in budget. Link here to the story on Chairman Gensler's Congressional…

As we all know, Dodd-Frank is replete with errors of every kind (not just policy errors). The failure of Congress to clean up the most obvious of the mistakes results in a flawed statute being even worse. Clean up legislation is really needed.