USCA4 Appeal: 25-1892
Doc: 16
Filed: 10/15/2025
Pg: 68 of 97
U.S.C. § 16(e)(1)(B), or prevent states from enforcing their “general civil or criminal antifraud statute[s], ” id. § 13a-2(7). But those limitations on the
scope of field preemption do not suggest that states may apply gambling laws
to ban trading on DCMs — the heart of the preempted field.
To the contrary, those cases recognized the opposite. The Seventh Circuit in American Agriculture noted that any state law that “ would directly affect trading on or the operation of a futures market ” “ is preempted. ” 977 F.2d at 1156-57; Effex Cap., LLC v. Nat ’ l Futures Ass ’ n , 933 F.3d 882, 894 (7th Cir. 2019) (same). In Ken Roberts , the D.C. Circuit confirmed that the “CFTC’s jurisdiction was ‘ to be exclusive with regard to the trading of futures on organized contract markets . ’” 276 F.3d at 590-591 (quotation omitted). The district court’s cases proceed to hold — correctly — that the CEA does not preempt state regulation of off-exchange futures trading or fraud suits “brought by futures investors against their brokers . ” Am. Agric. , 977 F.2d at 1156; see Kerr v. First Commodity Corp. , 735 F.2d 281, 283-284, 288 (8th Cir. 1984) (punitive damages against broker for defrauding customer); Patry v. Rosenthal & Co. , 534 F. Supp. 545, 546 (D. Kan. 1984) (state-law case involving broker-customer dispute); Ken Roberts , 276 F.3d at 583-584 (false
advertising in “instructional materials” targeted at commodities traders ).
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