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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, under the leadership of Gary Gensler, has long been seen as the most aggressive regulator in terms of passing rules mandated by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul.

No more. Rule making at the CFTC has slowed sharply in recent months amid internal squabbling, lobbying pressure from the financial industry and the sheer complexity of the rules themselves.

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A lead US regulator has circulated a confidential draft proposal in an attempt to broker a deal that would finalise planned rules for the $639tn derivatives market.

Bart Chilton, a Democratic member of the five-person Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has in recent days internally proposed a compromise on rules for derivatives marketplaces, or “swap execution facilities”, according to people who have seen the document.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairman Gary Gensler has defended the advantage handed to futures markets by the agency's margin rules, claiming the higher minimum applied to over-the-counter swaps is based on years of established practice – and said that forthcoming rules for new swap execution facilities (Sefs) will not address the disparity.

That comes days after Bloomberg, which is planning to launch a new swap trading platform, threatened the CFTC with legal action over the issue. Bloomberg argued that Sefs will suffer because of the advantage the rules grant to new swap futures contracts – which compete with traditional OTC products, but which Sefs cannot trade.

Heavy derivatives users are ready for the start of mandatory clearing in the US on March 11, according to Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Three classes of over-the-counter derivatives market participant become subject to the mandate in less than a week's time, with more to follow later this year – and dealers have claimed a behind-the-scenes compliance scramble is under way – but Gensler has said entities subject to the new rules appear to be ready to start, and the only questions so far have been on the relatively dry topic of portfolio compression.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler said Wednesday that a lack of funding is affecting the agency's enforcement, oversight of clearinghouses and could also affect approval of new trading platforms.

"We're currently shelving enforcement cases," Mr. Gensler said at a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing.