CFTC Staff Letters

No-action relief for ICE Clear Europe Limited with regard to Regulation 1.20(g)(4), and an exemption from the requirements of Regulation 1.49(d)(3) for customer accounts held at the Bank of England.

The Division of Market Oversight and the Division of Clearing and Risk issued a letter stating that they will not recommend that the Commission take enforcement action against Singapore Exchange Derivatives Clearing Limited for failure to comply with the applicable swap data reporting requirements of part 45 Commission Regulations

SEFs and DCMs will have time-limited no-action relief from Commission Regulation 37.9(a)(2) regarding methods of execution for required transactions, or Commission Regulations 37.203(a) and 38.152 that prohibit pre-arranged trading, if a SEF or DCM permits a new trade, with terms and conditions that match the terms and conditions of the original trade, other than the time of execution, to be submitted for clearing. This no-action relief shall commence on the date of issuance of this letter and shall expire on February 16, 2015.

No-action relief from compliance with certain terms of required Regulation 30.7(c).

The CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight issued an extension of no-action letter 13-86, which provided relief in connection with certain CDS trades executed pursuant to a DCO’s CDS Settlement Price Process, providing time-limited no-action relief to DCOs and their Clearing Members from the SEF Registration Requirement and Trading Mandate under Part 37, and from various reporting requirements under Part 45, allowing the DCO to fulfill the Reporting Counterparty’s Obligations.

DMO is providing time-limited relief, subject to specified conditions, to SEFs from the “occurs away” requirement under § 43.2 until December 15, 2015, at 12:00 am EST. The relief will allow SEFs to facilitate the execution of block trades on their non-Order Book trading systems or platforms while they evaluate and address the technology and other pre-execution credit check issues associated with block trading that occurs “away from” the SEFs’ trading system or platform.

Conditional no-action relief with respect to swaps trading on certain financial markets that are licensed in Australia and overseen by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC)

No-action letter permitting, subject to certain conditions, commodity pool operators of certain commodity pools that are non-registered investment companies (“Parent Pools”) that use wholly-owned trading subsidiaries to trade in commodity interests (“Trading Subsidiaries”) to consolidate the annual reports required to be submitted to the National Futures Association (“NFA”) pursuant to Commission regulation 4.7(b) or 4.22(c), as applicable, and the CPO-PQR reports required to be submitted to NFA pursuant to Commission regulation 4.27(c) for the Trading Subsidiaries with those of their Parent Pools.

Subject to specific conditions, the Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight granted the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation and the Federal National Mortgage Association no-action relief, such that either entity may be exempt from registration as a commodity pool operator pursuant to Regulation 4.13(a)(3) with respect to its operation of a mortgage credit risk sharing initiative described therein.

Extension of Time-Limited No-Action Relief with Respect to Certain Commodity Exchange Act Provisions That May Apply to Southwest Power Pool, Inc. and/or Its Participants