Swaps regulator Sommers to step down next week

Jill Sommers, commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, testifies at the Senate Agriculture Committee in Washington, August 1 2012.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jill Sommers said she would step down as a top swaps regulator next week after the agency she works for sued former MF Global chief Jon Corzine over the collapse of his firm, an investigation she had overseen.

"I've had the opportunity to wrap things up in the last week," Sommers, a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, told Reuters in a telephone interview, adding that she would leave on July 8.

A Republican, Sommers had announced her departure in January after Mitt Romney lost his bid for the presidency, but had not said when she would leave.

Sommers had often been critical of the CFTC as it draws up new rules for the $630 trillion derivatives markets as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, which lawmakers crafted in response to the 2007-2009 U.S. financial crisis.

She was put in charge of probing futures brokerage MF Global, as Chairman Gary Gensler recused himself when politicians raised concerns over his prior business relationship with Corzine at Goldman Sachs.

Last week, the CFTC charged Corzine over the 2011 collapse of MF Global, blaming him for being a key actor in one of the country's 10 biggest bankruptcies, seeking penalties and a life-long ban from the industry.

Sommers's departure comes as the CFTC faces a July 12 deadline by which it needs to decide how its rules apply to foreign banks, a hugely controversial issue that Sommers had also indicated she wanted to see to an end.

The process is taking much longer than expected however, as Gensler struggles to get enough support from his fellow Commissioners for a tough proposal that has been criticized by foreign politicians as well as in America.

(Reporting by Douwe Miedema; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)