Overview
Kathryn (Katie) M. Trkla is a partner at Foley & Lardner LLP. She works on a variety of matters for futures commission merchants and securities brokerage firms, institutional investors, professional trading firms, commercial hedgers, domestic and foreign exchanges, clearing houses and other clients. Katie has 35 years’ experience in the derivatives and securities industries, including 11 years with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) where she was senior vice president and associate general counsel before joining Foley in 2000. She is a member of the firm’s Securities, Commodities & Exchange Regulation Practice within the Securities Enforcement & Litigation Practice; the Business Law Department; the Blockchain Task Force and Energy Industry Team; and the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) Team.
Katie’s experience ranges from: representing clients on matters before the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, and self-regulatory organizations; analyzing regulatory proposals; counseling clients on the implications of legislative and rule changes; and providing general regulatory counsel. Her deep experience and background qualify her to provide a broad and unique perspective on the issues and regulations facing the financial markets and market participants.
Katie has a thorough understanding of regulation of derivatives clearing, protection of customer funds and issues involving commodity broker bankruptcies. She assists with drafting clearing house rules and rule changes and analyzes enforceability of clearing house rules. She counsels clients on differences in treatment and protection of funds associated with cleared versus non-cleared derivatives transactions and clearing of swaps versus futures. Along with a Foley colleague, she served as special commodity counsel to the trustee in the PFG commodity broker bankruptcy. As co-chair of the ABA Part 190 Subcommittee comprised of members of the ABA Derivatives & Futures Law and Business Bankruptcy Committees, Katie co-led the project to draft “model” comprehensive revisions to the CFTC Part 190 Commodity Broker Bankruptcy Rules, which the subcommittee submitted to the CFTC in 2017.The model rules formed the foundation for the comprehensive amendments to Part 190 that the CFTC approved in December 2020.
Recognition
Katie has been peer review rated as AV Preeminent®, the highest performance rating in Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Ratings™ system. She was ranked globally by Chambers Global in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 and nationally by Chambers USA in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 in the area of Derivatives. She has also been selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© since 2007 in the area of Derivatives and Futures Law and was named Chicago’s 2014 and 2019 Lawyer of the Year for derivatives and futures law.*
Education
- Northwestern University School of Law (J.D., cum laude)
- University of Chicago (B.A.)
Admissions
- Illinois
- American Bar Association
- Chicago Bar Association
Leadership Positions and Professional Affiliations
- Chair, ABA Derivatives & Futures Law Committee (term starting September 2020)
- Vice Chair, ABA Derivatives & Futures Law Committee (2015-2020)
- Co-Chair, ABA Part 190 Subcommittee (2015-present)
- Chair, ABA Innovative Digitized Products and Processes Subcommittee (IDPPS) (2018-January 2020)
- Member, Futures Industry Association (“FIA”) Law & Compliance Executive Committee (May 2020-present; prior term 2015-2018)
- Member, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Working Group on Financial Markets
- Faculty Practicing Law Institute (PLI) (since 2010)
Selected Publications
- Co-author, “190 Across the Finish Line: CFTC Adopts New Bankruptcy Rules for FCMs and DCOs,” Futures & Derivatives Law Report (April 2021)
- Co-author, “Finally 190! Years in the Making: CFTC Proposes New Bankruptcy Rules for FCMs and DCOs,” Futures & Derivatives Law Report (May 2020)
- Editor and co-author, “Digital and Digitized Assets; Federal and State Jurisdictional Issues,” ABA IDPPS (March 2019)
- Co-author, “Derivatives Regulation – 2021 Cumulative Supplement,” Wolters Kluwer (Oct. 2020)
Selected Speaking Engagements
- Speaker, ABA Business Law Section Derivatives and Futures Law Committee Mid-Year Meeting (2021)
- Speaker, “Futures 101,” FIA L&C-Virtual (April 2021)
- Speaker, “Clearing and Bankruptcy Risk,” ABA Derivatives and Future Law Committee Winter Meeting (2021)
- Chair, “Part 190 Bankruptcy,” FIA L&C-Virtual (Oct. 2020)
- Chair, “Wrap-Up Panel,” ABA Derivatives and Future Law Committee Winter Meeting (2020)
- Speaker, “Digital Assets for Interbank and Clearinghouse Settlement,” Sixth Annual Conference on CCP Risk Management, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (Oct. 2019)
- Speaker, “Swap Execution Methods, SEFs, Give-Up and Reporting,” PLI Conference on Advanced Swaps & Other Derivatives (Oct. 2017, 2018 and 2019)
*The Illinois Supreme Court does not recognize certifications of specialties in the practice of law and no award or recognition is a requirement to practice law in Illinois.