U.S. lawmakers are expected to grill Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev over GameStop’s commercial frenzy during a congressional hearing later today.

In his prepared remarks, Robinhood’s CEO appeared to blame the platform’s trading suspensions on the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Tenev said the company blocked transactions to meet “regulatory filing requirements” set by the SEC. The executive specifically criticized an SEC rule that requires stock trades to be cleared over two days:

“It takes several days for the clearing house to process the transaction […] This is called the “T + 2” settlement, showing the date of the transaction plus a two-day “settlement period”. This T + 2 settlement cycle is codified by SEC Rule 15c6-1 (a), which prohibits broker-dealers from buying or selling a security no later than the second business day after the ‘execution of the transaction.

Tenev called on the authority to change its trading rules to allow clearing houses to support real-time settlement instead of a two-day settlement period. “There is no reason why the largest financial system the world has ever seen cannot settle transactions in real time. This would greatly mitigate the risk posed by such treatment, ”he wrote. Robinhood before published a blog post denouncing a two-day settlement on February 2.

In his testimony, Tenev also referred to a January 30 statement. investor alert by the SEC which made it clear that brokers have the right to reject or limit client transactions for “legal, compliance or risk management reasons.”

Tenev also denied reports that Robinhood blocked on-demand hedge fund trading, stating that any allegation that Robinhood acted to aid hedge funds or other interests to the detriment of their clients is “absolutely false rhetoric. and distorting the market ”.

Robinhood’s GameStop saga began on January 28 when the company stopped buying GameStop and other stocks that were said to have been pumped through the r / Wallstreetbets Reddit community. Following trade restrictions, the community speculated that Robinhood could have acted to protect the interests of hedge funds like Citadel and Melvin Capital at the expense of retail investors on Reddit.

House Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) announced plans to hold a virtual hearing dedicated to the GameStop saga in early February. The audience is program for 12:00 p.m. ET and will also feature Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, Melvin Capital CEO Gabriel Plotkin, and Citadel CEO Kenneth Griffin.