Sponsors (5)
Introduced March 5, 2026 by Jeff Merkley · Last progress March 5, 2026
The bill strengthens ethics and market‑transparency by banning certain officials from trading event contracts and requiring faster, public reporting, at the cost of added compliance and enforcement burdens, privacy tradeoffs, potential penalties, higher costs for foreign exchanges, and some regulatory uncertainty.
Federal elected officials (Members of Congress, the President, and the Vice President) and senior executive branch officials are barred from trading event contracts tied to matters they handle, reducing conflicts of interest and increasing public trust in government decision‑making.
Federal employees, watchdogs, and the public gain faster, more transparent access to event‑contract trading information via required disclosures and 30–45 day filing deadlines, making it easier to detect conflicts of interest and speed enforcement or recusals.
CFTC rulemaking and reporting requirements for event contracts and foreign boards increase oversight and market transparency, helping regulators and state authorities monitor cross‑border event‑contract activity.
Covered officials face new civil penalties (up to $10,000) and potential forfeiture of profits per violation, creating direct financial exposure and legal risk for federal employees who trade event contracts.
Federal employees and officials must track and report event‑contract transactions within 30–45 days, increasing individual compliance burden and administrative costs for those covered.
Foreign boards of trade and financial institutions will incur higher compliance costs from quarterly reporting requirements and face the risk of registration revocation, which could reduce market access.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Bars top federal officials from trading prediction-market event contracts, requires timely disclosure of such trades, and gives the CFTC and Attorney General enforcement and reporting powers.
Prohibits the President, Vice President, Members of Congress, and certain senior executive branch officials from buying, selling, or otherwise exchanging ‘‘event contracts’’ (prediction-market contracts tied to future events). It requires public disclosure of such transactions by covered reporting officials, authorizes civil penalties and enforcement by the Attorney General, gives the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) rulemaking authority to limit use of material nonpublic information in event contracts, and imposes reporting duties on foreign boards of trade that list such contracts. Covered officials must report event-contract transactions in annual and termination financial reports and file a separate periodic transaction report within 30–45 days after each event-contract trade. Penalties may be assessed (at least $10,000 or equal to unlawful profits), and the CFTC may revoke registrations for failure to report and must adopt rules and market prohibitions it finds in the public interest.