Dunn v. Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n, 519 U.S. 465, 6 (1997)

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470

DUNN v. COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMM'N

Opinion of the Court

by any of the arguments advanced by the CFTC in support of a narrower reading that would exempt futures contracts (agreements to buy or sell a specified quantity of a commodity at a particular price for delivery at a set future date)7 without exempting options.

III

"[A]bsent any 'indication that doing so would frustrate Congress's clear intention or yield patent absurdity, our obligation is to apply the statute as Congress wrote it.' " Hubbard v. United States, 514 U. S. 695, 703 (1995) (quoting BFP v. Resolution Trust Corporation, 511 U. S. 531, 570 (1994) (Souter, J., dissenting)). The CFTC argues, and the Court of Appeals held, that an option is not itself a transaction "in" foreign currency, but rather is just a contract right to engage in such a transaction at a future date. Brief for CFTC 30-31; 58 F. 3d, at 53. Hence, the Commission submits that the term "transactions in foreign currency" includes only the "actual exercise of an option (i. e., the actual purchase or sale of foreign currency)" but not the purchase or sale of an option itself. Brief for CFTC 31. That reading of the text seems quite unnatural to us, and we decline to adopt it.

The more normal reading of the key phrase encompasses all transactions in which foreign currency is the fungible good whose fluctuating market price provides the motive for trading. The CFTC's interpretation violates the ordinary meaning of the key word "in," which is usually thought to be "synonymous with [the] expressions 'in regard to,' 'respecting,' [and] 'with respect to.' " Black's Law Dictionary 758 (6th ed. 1990); see Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter, Communities for Great Ore., 515 U. S. 687, 697-698 (1995). There can be no question that the purchase or sale of a foreign

7 See Munn & Garcia 414; City of New York Bar Association Committee on Futures Regulation, The Evolving Regulatory Framework for Foreign Currency Trading 9 (1986).

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