Kenneth W. McCracken concentrates his practice in litigation, compliance and enforcement matters related to futures, derivatives and commodity products in the financial markets. As a former Chief Trial Attorney in the Division of Enforcement for the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Mr. McCracken supervised a team of attorneys in investigations and litigations in federal court. He has investigated, litigated and supervised all aspects of financial regulatory matters including market manipulations, trade practice violations, and commodities and securities fraud.

Mr. McCracken’s application to the District of Columbia bar is pending. All lawyers not yet admitted in the District of Columbia are supervised by Schiff Hardin partners who are admitted in the District of Columbia.
Experience

Highlights of Mr. McCracken’s recent matters prior to joining Schiff Hardin include:

Leading the investigation and litigation of an attempted manipulation of the wheat futures contract in the electronic markets.
Leading the investigation and successful settlement for attempted manipulation in the nonfat dry milk (NFDM) futures contract.
Leading the investigation and successful settlement for attempted manipulation and exceeding speculative position limits in the Class III milk futures contract.
Supervised the investigation and successful litigation of an Introducing Broker found liable for making false statements to a regulator, the National Futures Association (NFA), resulting in civil penalties, disgorgement, and registration and trading bans.
Supervised the investigation and successful litigation of a Ponzi scheme involving multiple commodity pools over many years that defrauded investors of more than $11 million.
Supervised the investigation and successful litigation of a foreign currency fraud targeting the deaf community resulting in more than $6.2 million civil penalties, disgorgement and permanent trading bans.

Additionally, Mr. McCracken was a member of the CFTC team that drafted Product Definition Rules and interpretive guidance, jointly with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), defining "swap," "security-based swap," and "anti-evasion" as a part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank).
Speeches and Presentations
"Recent Trends in CFTC Enforcement and Compliance," (panelist) Enforcement and Compliance Conference (March 12, 2013)

Previous Experience

Mr. McCracken spent more than 10 years at the CFTC, where he served as a Chief Trial Attorney in the Division of Enforcement, Washington, D.C. office, and earlier as a Senior Trial Attorney in the regional office in Kansas City, Missouri. For the majority of his time there, he served as a supervisor, overseeing multiple trial attorneys and investigators in the successful investigation and litigation of matters in commodity and swaps market manipulations and trade practice fraud involving foreign currency (forex), energy and agricultural commodities, precious metals, and algorithmic and high-frequency trading.

Mr. McCracken also worked substantially on the CFTC’s product definition rule and interpretative guidance for defining a swap, security-based swap, and the anti-evasion definition as a part of Dodd-Frank.

Prior to his time at the CFTC, he worked in the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, where he was an Assistant Attorney General in the Consumer Protection Division handling civil and criminal prosecutions of consumer and securities fraud. Mr. McCracken was previously an assistant county attorney in Kansas and began his legal career in private practice.