Tamika Bent is a partner in the firm’s Asset Management and Investment Funds practice. She is a seasoned derivatives lawyer with extensive transactional and financial regulatory experience, including as in-house counsel at an investment bank and Chief Counsel to a Commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Tamika provides clients with practical solutions to their most sophisticated and complex legal issues. She represents funds, commercial end-users, banks, broker-dealers, swap dealers, security-based swap dealers, futures commission merchants, and trade associations.
In her transactional practice, Tamika structures and negotiates a broad range of agreements and transactions, including:
- ISDA Master Agreements and collateral documentation, MRAs, MSLAs, and other industry-standard trading agreements and clearing documentation for cleared and uncleared swaps, repurchase transactions, and securities lending transactions.
- Loan-linked and deal-contingent hedges in connection with financing agreements and mergers and acquisitions.
- Structured transactions, such as total return swaps and repurchase facilities.
She helps clients navigate the complexities of the US regulatory environment by providing:
- Transaction-adjacent advice in connection with derivatives transactions, including Dodd-Frank compliance and related documentation considerations.
- Litigation support in connection with swap dealer examination and investigation.
- Compliance counsel in connection with high-stakes matters involving CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) derivatives regulations.
Tamika also advises clients on emerging products and evolving areas of financial markets, including:
- Digital asset transactions and trading arrangements within existing derivatives and commodities frameworks.
- Perpetual derivatives and related market structure considerations, including designated contract market registration.
- Prediction markets and related regulatory developments, drawing on her prior experience as a regulator.
Prior to joining the firm, Tamika was Chief Counsel to former Commissioner Kristin N. Johnson at the CFTC and oversaw the CFTC’s Market Risk Advisory Committee. Tamika advanced the office’s priorities on emerging regulatory and market developments, such as event contracts and prediction markets, digital asset derivatives, artificial intelligence in derivatives markets, disintermediation of clearing services, and vertically integrated market structures.
Tamika was also Senior Counsel and Executive Director at a French corporate and investment bank, where she led legal support for the bank’s Global Markets derivatives business and managed the document negotiation function. Tamika also taught as an adjunct professor at New York Law School.
- Member, Futures Industry Association Law and Compliance Division
- Member, Women in Financial Markets
- Member, New York City Bar Association, Futures and Derivatives Regulations Committee, Working Group on Cryptocurrency and UCC, and Committee on Minorities in the Profession
- Member, New York State Bar Association, Derivatives and Structured Products Law Committee
- Member, ISDA Future Leaders in Derivatives Program, Technology and Innovation Workstream
- Member, American Bar Association, Part 190 Subcommittee
- Insight Lead, “Forward: Where Market Innovation Meets Market Integrity,” Eventus FORWARD, 23 April 2026
- Speaker, “Court Watch: The CEA is Under Review,” FIA Law & Compliance Division Conference, MD, April 2025
- Speaker, “Derivatives Documentation,” ISDA Masterclass, NY, March 2026
- Co-Chair, PLI Understanding Financial Products, NY, February 2026
- Speaker, “Market Structure Innovation,” ABA Derivatives and Futures Law Committee Meeting, FL, January 2026
- Speaker, “Derivatives Documentation,” ISDA Masterclass, NY, October 2025
- Speaker, “Administrative Law: Are We in a New Age of Agency Rulemaking?” FIA Law & Compliance Division Conference, MD, April 2025
- Speaker, “Derivatives Documentation,” ISDA Masterclass, NY, April 2025
- Speaker, “Understanding Core ISDA Documentation: ISDA Master Agreement,” ISDA Virtual Conferences, March 2025
- Co-Chair, PLI Understanding Financial Products, NY, January 2025
- Speaker, “Scanning the Horizon: How to Prepare Your Business for New Regulations,” FIA Law & Compliance Division Conference, National Harbor, MD, April 2024
- Speaker, “AI-Related Risks,” CFTC, MRAC, Future of Finance Subcommittee Meeting, Washington, DC, March 2024
- Speaker, “Importance of Regulatory Clarity,” Office of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, DC’s Pathway to Crypto Innovation, Live Webcast, February 2024
- Speaker, “Climate-Related Market Risk,” CFTC, MRAC Meeting, Washington, DC, December 2023
- Speaker, “Steps to Diversity and Inclusion,” ISDA Annual Legal Forum, New York, NY, October 2023
- Speaker, “LIBOR Transition: Are We Done Yet?” FIA Law & Compliance Division Conference, Washington, DC, April 2023
- Speaker, “Ethics,” ABA Derivatives and Futures Law Committee Winter Meeting, Hilton Head Island, SC, February 2023
- Moderator, “Securitized Products,” PLI Understanding Financial Products 2023, New York, NY, January 2023
- Speaker, “Perspectives from Future Leaders,” ISDA 36th AGM, Madrid, Spain, May 2022
- Speaker, “CCP Risk Issues,” FIA Law & Compliance Division Conference, Washington, DC, April 2022
- Speaker and Moderator, “Capital Markets,” PLI Understanding Financial Products 2022, Live Webcast, January 2022
- Speaker, “Market Volatility and Impact on the Clearing System,” FIA Law & Compliance Division Conference (L&C-V), Virtual, On-Demand, April 2021
- Speaker, “Overview of Derivatives Products,” Fundamentals of Derivatives, ISDA, New York, NY, January 2020
- Author, “Rethinking ‘Customer’ in Disintermediated Cleared Derivatives Markets,” Futures & Derivatives Law Report, March 2026
- Co-author, “Commodity Futures Trading Commission Permits Separate Account Treatment,” The Journal of Federal Agency Action, July–August 2025
- Co-author, “The Ethics of Civility: The ‘New York Standards of Civility’ and the Derivatives Legal Community,” Futures & Derivatives Law Report, March 2023
- Co-author, “The Future of Derivatives Markets: A Roadmap for Innovation,” ISDA, May 2022
- Co-author, “ISDA Legal Guidelines for Smart Derivatives Contracts: Foreign Exchange Derivatives,” ISDA, November 2020
- Quoted, "Trump Regulatory Path for Prediction Markets Not Slowing Courts", Bloomberg Law, 24 February 2026
