The New York Times recently published an article on its Dealbook site, “MF Global Inquiry Turns to its Primary Regulator,” that misled readers to believe the CFTC’s investigation of the MF Global failure was turning its focus to CME Group. In fact, based on our conversations with the CFTC, its investigation has not changed and continues to focus on MF Global. CME Group has been and continues to work closely with the CFTC on their investigation. To clarify inaccuracies in the article and the subsequent coverage it generated in other outlets, we submitted a response from Terry Duffy, which ran on the NYT Dealbook site today. The full text of the response follows:

To expand on the article by Ben Protess and Azam Ahmed on Friday, Jan. 5 , it is no surprise that CME Group is included in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s review. In November, the C.F.T.C. requested that CME Group not conduct its own investigation, but rather be part of theirs, and we have worked closely with them since then.

To be sure, it is the C.F.T.C.’s job to look at everything that occurred leading up to the MF Global failure; and we are confident the agency will agree that we fulfilled our responsibilities as the designated self-regulatory organization. We have talked to the C.F.T.C. , who confirmed that nothing has changed with respect to their investigation. Moreover, the fact that the C.F.T.C. enlisted our help to complete the majority of the limited reviews to ensure firms’ compliance with customer segregation rules shows they continue to trust the quality of our work.

It is important to recognize that MF Global submitted a report to CME Group on Friday, Oct. 28, showing that customer segregated accounts were not only in compliance, but contained a $200 million surplus above what was required for the close of business on Thursday, Oct. 27. It was not until Monday, Oct. 31 that the firm restated its report to show the original submission was false and there was, in fact, a substantial shortfall in segregated funds.

In my oral and written testimony before three Congressional committees, I stated that it was the unlawful transfer of funds from client’s segregated accounts that led to the customer shortfall. As Ananda Radhakrishnan, the C.F.T.C’s director of the division of clearing and risk, was quoted in your newspaper on Dec. 9 as saying, “If people are determined to misuse customer funds, they will misuse them.”

It’s easy, but not helpful or fair, to criticize CME Group’s diligent and appropriate oversight based on what is now known about how MF Global violated exchange and C.F.T.C. rules. The fact that MF Global’s executives permitted customer funds to be misused does not mean that the regulator or the regulatory system failed: The failure was with the executives who committed these actions.

Additionally, Terry appeared on CNBC to set the record straight.