Voices in Congress this week revived the idea of consolidating the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission into one streamlined agency with oversight over almost all the capital markets, according to a newly released Congressional report.
That controversial idea—last heard in 2009 during the fledging days of the Obama Administration and the financial regulatory reform that ultimately became the Dodd-Frank Act—was included in a report published by a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee investigating the collapse of brokerage firm MF Global. The firm collapsed into bankruptcy in October 2011, and saddled customers with a $1.6 billion shortfall in funds that should not have happened.
