CFTC gets into legal clash over stock perps after having cleared path for crypto version

A new organization representing traditional financial firms said it filed a lawsuit against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday to try to stop the agency's approval of single-stock perpetual futures.

The stock perps are meant to trade in the same way as the regulator's recent roadmap for crypto perps, but Capital Markets Alliance filed the legal challenge on the same day that the agency announced it was giving a green light to open-ended futures contracts for stocks. Though the industry organization doesn't have a significant history, it said it's backed by leading exchanges, broker-dealers and investment firms, including Cboe and Citadel Securities.

Its lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York is seeking to eliminate the policy, arguing that the products are securities-based swaps that belong in the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission and contending the CFTC violated the Administrative Procedure Act in failing to offer explanation for its policy and why it contradicts an earlier agency stance.

When CFTC Chairman Mike Selig announced the agency's new policy, he said in a statement on Tuesday that it "builds on that milestone by extending the availability of the perpetual futures contract instrument in the U.S. beyond digital commodities and into traditional securities." That move came about five months after the agency had first cleared a path for bitcoin perps, in the hopes that a thriving overseas market would move to the U.S.

The CFTC's earlier action on crypto perps also drew a lawsuit from CME Group. The company similarly argued that the perpetual futures contracts are not actually futures, because they have no end date. They're really swaps, which carry different regulatory treatments, CME contends.

The CFTC didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the new lawsuit.

The lawsuit seems to be the only significant action the CMA has taken so far. A spokesman told CoinDesk the group includes Cboe, Citadel Securities and Healthy Markets Association among its members.

The regulator's new stance was also criticized by the American Securities Association on Tuesday. "By labeling stock perps as security futures, the CFTC sidestepped the SEC’s jurisdiction and Congress’ ban on selling security-based swaps to retail investors,” said ASA President and CEO Chris Iacovella in a statement.