'Trading Places' would make a good PSA: CFTC enforcement chief

Comedians Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd may be getting casting calls in the near future from an unlikely suitor: the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Noting the recent attention to Michael Douglas' public service announcements against securities fraud, David Meister, director of enforcement at the CFTC, said this morning that the movie stars could bring attention to new authority the CFTC has under the Dodd-Frank Act. “In the wake of Dodd-Frank, we have become a primary financial regulator,” said Mr. Meister, who spoke this morning on a panel in Miami at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association's Compliance & Legal Society Annual Seminar. Along with regulating the $40 trillion futures market, the CFTC now regulates the $300 trillion swaps market, Mr. Meister noted. It also has new anti-fraud provisions. In an aside, Mr. Meister said that Mr. Murphy and Mr. Akroyd starred in “Trading Places,” a 1983 comedy with a plot that hinges on insider information of orange juice futures contracts, thus making the pair appropriate for a public service message warning of such illegal tactics. Last month, Mr. Douglas assisted the FBI and was featured in a public service announcement for the bureau, asking for the public to report information about securities fraud such as insider trading to the FBI. Mr. Douglas starred in the 1987 film “Wall Street” and portrayed the infamous investment banker Gordon Gekko. Mr. Douglas is remembered by many for the famous line of the movie: “Greed is good.”