WASHINGTON – Elected President Joe Biden is expected to elect Gary Gensler, a former financial regulator and CEO of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., as head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to people familiar with the decision.
The nomination of mr. Gensler will please liberal Democrats who encouraged the former regulator’s tough approach to rule during the Obama administration when he spearheaded the overhaul of derivative markets ordered and overseen by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act has about maintaining investment banks that are accused of manipulating benchmark interest rates.
The choice of mr. Gensler, who declined to comment, was not final and could still change, the people said.
As head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2009 to 2014, Mr. Gensler developed a reputation among his colleagues for bare-knuckle tactics while trying to create a regulatory framework for derivatives, a market worth more than a billion dollars that was largely free of federal oversight. By the time he left the commission, the series of rules was largely complete, years before other regulators completed their work after the crisis.
It was a surprise turnaround for the former Goldman CEO, who had previously resisted calls for additional regulation of derivatives when he served under President Clinton in the treasury department. The decision not to strictly regulate derivatives in the 1990s is blamed for its contribution to the financial crisis a decade later.