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U. S. COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION (CFTC)

Congress created in the CFTC in 1974 as an independent agency with the mandate to regulate commodity futures and option markets in the United States. The agency's mandate has been renewed and expanded several times since then, most recently by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA).

The mission of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is to protect market users and the public from fraud, manipulation, and abusive practices related to the sale of commodity and financial futures and options, and to foster open, competitive, and financially sound futures and option markets. Information pertaining to USDA electronic signature regulations on agriculture are available here.

The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission is regulated by the Code of Federal Regulations (17 CFR). The CFTC regulations concerning electronic signatures can be found in 17 CFR Chapter I Section 1.3 "Definitions" and 1.4 "Use of electronic signatures". These can be found in HTML or PDF.

17 CFR 1.3(tt) Electronic signature means an electronic sound, symbol, or process attached to or logically associated with a record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record.

17 CFR 1.4 Act or the rules or regulations in this Chapter I that requires a document to be signed by a customer of a futures commission merchant or introducing broker, a pool participant or a client of a commodity trading advisor, an electronic signature executed by the customer, participant or client will be sufficient, if the futures commission merchant, introducing broker, commodity pool operator or commodity trading advisor elects generally to accept electronic signatures;