Down the Rabbit Warren: A Senator’s Novel Bid to Expand the CFTC's Jurisdiction

Earlier this summer, Senator Elizabeth Warren floated an intriguing idea for expanding the regulatory remit of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a smallish federal agency usually associated with agricultural and financial derivatives like wheat futures and interest rate swaps. The idea was proposed in a June 28 letter from Senator Warren to Rostin Behnam, the acting chairman of the CFTC. The senator’s bid to expand the CFTC’s jurisdiction has to do with advertising intermediaries called “ad exchanges,” which Senator Warren’s letter describes this way: