WASHINGTON – President-elect Joe Biden is expected to elect Gary Gensler, a former financial regulator and executive of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to people familiar with the decision.
Mr. Gensler’s appointment would please Liberal Democrats who applauded the former regulator’s harsh approach to regulations during the Obama administration as he led the review of the derivatives markets imposed by the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 and oversight ceased enforcement action against investment banks accused of manipulation. benchmark interest rates.
Mr Gensler’s choice, who declined to comment, was not final and could change, people said.
As head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2009 to 2014, Mr. Gensler built a reputation among his peers for bare-knuckle tactics as he pursued a regulatory framework for derivatives, a multi-trillion-dollar market that was largely free from federal oversight. By the time he left the committee, the rules were largely in place, years before other regulators completed their post-crisis work.
It was a surprising turn of events for the former Goldman executive who had previously opposed calls for additional derivatives regulation while serving on the Treasury Department under President Clinton. The decision not to tightly regulate derivatives in the 1990s has been blamed for contributing to the financial crisis a decade later.