On average, officials from the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) were more active in the markets than their counterparts from any other US major federal agency, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing information from 12,000 financial disclosures by employees from 50 agencies.
FTC is in charge of investigating corporate mergers but 30 of its 90 senior officials invested in and traded stocks of companies that are under such probes by the agency, according to the report. FTC employees have reportedly invested in over a third of large firms under different forms of review by the agency they work for. They especially own or have owned shares of technology companies, despite the sector being the target of intense scrutiny by regulators such as the FTC in recent years.
The newspaper was told by an agency spokesman that its officials complied with the law.
