CFTC Ends Decades-Old ‘Gag Rule’ in Enforcement Settlements

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is ending an almost 30-year-old policy that forbade companies and individuals from airing their grievances or denying wrongdoing after they settled enforcement cases with the derivatives regulator.

The so-called gag rule, in place since 1998, will be revoked as soon as the policy update is published in the Federal Register, the agency said Wednesday.

“The Rule directly infringes upon the First Amendment rights of Americans and works to conceal the operations of agency enforcement from the American people,” the CFTC said in the rule update.

The CFTC’s policy had been rooted in the practice ...