CFTC Staff Letters

The Division of Market Oversight (DMO) is issuing a no-action letter that provides additional time for reporting parties to comply with certain reporting requirements of the ownership and control final rule (the OCR Final Rule), which was published in the Federal Register on November 18, 2013. Conditional Time-Limited No-Action Relief from certain Ownership and Control (OCR) Data reporting requirements under Parts 17, 18 and 20 of the Commissions Regulations: Replaces CFTC No-Action Letter No. 15-03

DCR and DMO Interpretation regarding use by a derivatives clearing organization of a firm or forced trades process. Request for Interpretation Regarding the Applicability of Commission Regulation 37.3(a)(1) and Section 2(h)(8) of the Commodity Exchange Act to Derivatives Clearing Organizations and their Clearing Members.

The CFTC Division of Clearing and Risk (the Division) interprets Part 39 (subparts A, B and C) to incorporate all of the standards set forth in the PFMIs and, indeed, to be fully consistent with the PFMIs. This position is supported by CFTC Regulation 39.40, which states that [t]his subpart C is intended to establish standards which, together with subparts A and B of this part [Part 39 of CFTC regulations], are consistent with Section 5b(c) of the Act and the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures… and should be interpreted in that context.

Issuance of a temporary registration order as a swap execution facility to LedgerX LLC. (DMO)

Extension of No-Action Relief: Transaction-Level Requirements for Non-U.S. Swap Dealers

DSIO provided a letter that exempts certain commodity trading advisors (CTAs) that are registered, but do not direct any client commodity interest accounts, from reporting on Form CTA-PR.

No-Action letter permitting, subject to certain conditions, the CPO of a pool organized as a UCITS that holds funds contributed by employees of its U.S. management company to operate said pool and its subfunds without registering as a CPO.

The CPO of two commodity pools, both exempt under Regulation 4.7, requested exemptive relief from the annual report requirement in Regulation 4.7(b)(3), to allow the filing of an annual report for the pools for the period from October 2, 2014, the date the pools began trading, to December 31, 2015; DSIO granted relief pursuant to Regulations 4.12(a) and 140.93 conditioned upon the future filing and distribution of a certified Annual Report for that time period.

Exemptive relief granted to a CPO to permit the CPO to provide monthly account statements to a pool’s participants within 45 days of the month end rather than quarterly account statement within 30 days of the quarter end pursuant to Commission regulation 4.7(b)(2).

Exemptive relief granted to a CPO of a pool that had all of its participants redeem out in 2014 from the audit requirements of Commission regulation 4.22(d) with respect to the financial statements in the 2014 annual report of the pool that is filed with NFA.