CME Group's Donohue to be a Panelist Wednesday at Joint SEC-CFTC Regulatory Harmonization Meeting

CHICAGO, Sept. 1  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CME Group, the world's largest and most diverse derivatives marketplace, announced that its Chief Executive Officer Craig Donohue will appear tomorrow before a joint meeting of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to discuss the differences in rules and philosophies as well as consequences and benefits of harmonizing regulations and regulatory approaches of the two Commissions.

"The goal of harmonization is to assure that the regulators of futures, swaps, security-swaps, securities and security options effectively work together to: promote efficient markets, provide safe central counterparty clearing houses and eliminate regulatory gaps," Donohue said.  "Harmonization does not include a merger of the existing regulatory structures into a single set of one-size-fits-all rules administered by separate agencies. This would lead to duplicative regulation, which is costly, stifles innovation and guarantees that overseas competitors will always be first to market. To achieve this goal, it is imperative that the CFTC and the SEC take into account the critical dissimilarities of their respective markets and the adverse consequences of trying to force them into the same mold. Equally, we must ensure that harmonization efforts position U.S. exchanges and intermediaries to compete effectively in the global financial marketplace.

"Futures exchanges and the futures industry have been reinvigorated by the application of principles-based regulation under the Commodity Exchange Act; we were a shining star while the rest of the financial services industry faltered during the recent financial meltdown."

The meeting is scheduled for 9:00 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday at the CFTC lobby-level hearing room, 1155 21st Street, NW, Washington DC. The testimony will be available also at 9:00 a.m. at http://www.cmegroup.mediaroom.com/.

CME Group (http://www.cmegroup.com/) is the world's largest and most diverse derivatives marketplace.  Building on the heritage of CME, CBOT and NYMEX, CME Group serves the risk management needs of customers around the globe.  As an international marketplace, CME Group brings buyers and sellers together on the CME Globex electronic trading platform and on trading floors in Chicago and New York.  By acting as the buyer to every seller and the seller to every buyer, CME Clearing virtually eliminates counterparty credit risk.  CME Clearing also offers financial safeguards to help mitigate systemic risk, providing the security and confidence market participants need to operate, invest and grow.  CME Group offers the widest range of benchmark products available across all major asset classes, including futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities, metals, and alternative investment products such as weather and real estate.  CME Group is listed on NASDAQ under the symbol "CME."

The Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME Group, Globex, E-mini and CME ClearPort are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago.  NYMEX and New York Mercantile Exchange are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.  Further information about CME Group and its products can be found at http://www.cmegroup.com/.

CME-G 

DATASOURCE: CME Group



CONTACT:  Media, Mary Haffenberg, [phone], or Allan Schoenberg,

[phone], , or Investors, John Peschier,

[phone], all of CME Group



Web Site:  http://www.cme.com/ 

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