CFTC Staff Letters Archive

CFTC Staff Letters Archive provides Letters from 2007 and earlier. For Letters published 2008 or later visit the All Letters page.

There are no Advisory Letters or Other Written Communications for 2007 or earlier.

Date	PDF and Description
04/17/2007	07-04 ; Section 2(a);; No-Action Confirmation of No-Action Relief to Offer and Sell in the United States Stockholm Stock Exchange Ltd.'s Standardized Futures Contract Based on the OMXS30 Index.
03/06/2007	07-02 ; Sections 5 and 5a of the Act;; No-Action The Division of Market Oversight issued a letter granting no-action relief to permit the Tokyo Financial Exchange, Inc. (TFX), to make its electronic trading and order matching system (LIFFE CONNECT™), as well as its Application Program Interface (API), available to TFX members in the U.S. without obtaining contract market designation or registration as a derivatives transaction execution facility pursuant to Sections 5 and 5a of the CEAct. The relief applies to TFX members trading for their own accounts; TFX members who are registered as futures commission merchants (FCMs) or who are exempt from such registration pursuant to CFTC Rule 30.10 (Rule 30.10 Firms) submitting orders from or on behalf of U.S. customers to LIFFE CONNECT™ for execution or accepting orders for U.S. customers transmitted via automated order routing systems for transmission to LIFFE CONNECT™; and TFX members who are registered as Commodity Pool Operators (CPO) or Commodity Trading Advisors (CTA), or who are exempt from such CPO or CTA registration pursuant to Commission Regulation 4.13 or 4.14, submitting orders to LIFFE CONNECT™ on behalf of U.S. pools they operate or U.S. customer accounts for which they have discretionary authority, respectively, provided that an FCM or Rule 30.10 Firm acts as clearing firm and guarantees without limitation all such trades of the CPO or CTA effected through submission of orders on LIFFE CONNECT™.
03/05/2007	07-03 ; Sections 5 and 5a of the Act;; No-Action Confirmation that no-action relief granted to LIFFE Administration and Management extends to futures contracts on the FTSEurofirst 80 Index and FTSEurofirst 100 Index traded on Euronext Paris SA.
02/13/2007	07-01 ; Section 4m(1) of the Commodity Exchange Act;; No-Action The Division of Clearing and Intermediary Oversight issued a letter granting no-action relief to permit a registered commodity trading advisor to withdraw its registration in connection with the provision of commodity interest trading advice to customers who trade wholesale electricity and natural gas. This relief was based upon, among other reasons, the representations that: (i) the commodity trading advisor was formed as a non-profit corporation as an alliance of public power utilities; (ii) the commodity trading advice provided by the commodity trading advisor would be limited to managing risk in the power and natural gas markets on behalf of entities that qualify as “eligible contract participants” under the Commodity Exchange Act; and (iii) the commodity trading advisor would not advertise or solicit any commodity futures trading services, nor manage any speculative accounts.
10/24/2006	06-29 ; Section 1a(23); Regulation 1.3(mm);; No-Action The Division of Clearing and Intermediary Oversight issued an interpretation that a software vendor is not an introducing broker, and is not required to register as such, in connection with its marketing of a software program with the ability to route orders to a designated contract market (“DCM”) or derivatives transaction execution facility (“DTEF”) on behalf of the futures commission merchant ("FCM") of the customers’ choice. This interpretation was based on the representations that: (1) the software vendor does not have a membership with or trading privileges on any DCM or DTEF that uses the order routing software; (2) the software does not provide express “buy” or “sell” signals; (3) customers have pre-existing relationships with their FCMs and will negotiate any and all fees for executing trades between themselves and the FCM; (4) the software provider will not solicit orders for, or recommend, propose, or encourage customers to use, any particular FCM; (4) the software will reside on customers’ computers and the orders will go directly from the end user to the DCM or DTEF without passing through the FCM’s order entry system; and (5) the software provider will be compensated by fees that are paid to it by the customer, and are not related to the fees charged by the FCM for the placement of customer orders.
10/11/2006	06-28 ; Section 2(a);; No-Action Taiwan Futures Exchange’s Request for No-Action Relief in Connection with the Offer and Sale in the United States of its Futures Contract Based on the MSCI Taiwan Index.
09/29/2006	06-25 ; Sections 5 and 5a of the Act;; No-Action The Division of Market Oversight issued a letter amending the no-action relief granted July 23, 1999, permitting LIFFE to make its electronic trading and order matching system, LIFFE CONNECT®, available to members in the U.S. without obtaining contract market designation pursuant to Sections 5 and 5a of the CEA. The amendment permits LIFFE members who are registered with the Commission as Commodity Pool Operators (CPO) or Commodity Trading Advisors (CTA), or who are exempt from such CPO or CTA registration pursuant to Commission Regulation 4.13 or 4.14, to enter orders directly into LIFFE CONNECT® through terminals located in the United States on behalf of the pools which they operate or the customer accounts over which they exercise trading discretion, respectively, provided that all such trading activity is cleared through a registered FCM or a firm that is exempt from registration by the Commission pursuant to Rule 30.10.
09/29/2006	06-24 ; Sections 5 and 5a of the Act;; No-Action The Division of Market Oversight issued a letter amending the no-action relief granted August 10, 1999, permitting ParisbourseSBF (now Euronext Paris N.V.) to make its electronic trading and order matching system, the Nouveau Systeme de Cotation (replaced by LIFFE CONNECT®), available to MATIF and MONEP members in the U.S. without obtaining contract market designation pursuant to Sections 5 and 5a of the CEA. The amendment permits Euronext Paris members who are registered with the Commission as Commodity Pool Operators (CPO) or Commodity Trading Advisors (CTA), or who are exempt from such CPO or CTA registration pursuant to Commission Regulation 4.13 or 4.14, to enter orders directly into LIFFE CONNECT® through terminals located in the United States on behalf of the pools which they operate or the customer accounts over which they exercise trading discretion, respectively, provided that all such trading activity is cleared through a registered FCM or a firm that is exempt from registration by the Commission pursuant to Rule 30.10.
09/28/2006	06-23 ; Sections 5 and 5a of the Act;; No-Action The Division of Market Oversight issued a letter granting no-action relief to permit the MexDer, Mercado Mexicano de Derivados, S.A. de C.V. (“MexDer”) to make its electronic trading and order matching systems, S/MART and SENTRA DERIVADOS (the “System”), as well as its application programming interface (“MexFix API”), available to MexDer members in the U.S. without obtaining contract market designation or registration as a derivatives transaction execution facility pursuant to sections 5 and 5a of the CEAct. The relief applies to: (1) MexDer members located in the U.S. that trade on the System for their proprietary accounts (as defined in CFTC Rule 1.3(y)); (2) MexDer members that are registered as futures commission merchants (“FCMs”), or that are exempt from such registration pursuant to CFTC Rule 30.10 (“Rule 30.10 Firms”), who submit orders from or on behalf of U.S. customers directly to the System for execution (through the MexFix API or otherwise); and (3) MexDer members that are FCMs or Rule 30.10 Firms who transmit orders from or on behalf of U.S. customers via an automated order routing system (“AORS”) for execution on the System.
09/26/2006	06-27 ; Rules 4.21, 4.22 and 4.23 – CPO disclosure, recordkeeping and reporting requirements;; No-Action The Division of Clearing and Intermediary Oversight granted exemptive relief from certain of the Part 4 regulations to the registered CPO of a commodity pool, whose shares the CPO intended to publicly offer and to list for trading on a national securities exchange. As is discussed in the letter, this relief was in the nature of substituted compliance with those regulations.