July 14, 2010

CFTC Issues Proposed Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Regulation for DCMs and DCOs and Conforming Amendments to the Core Principle Guidance Applicable to DCMs.

Washington, DC – The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today proposed a regulation that would establish a recovery standard for designated contract markets (DCMs) and derivatives clearing organizations (DCOs) that the Commission determines to be critical financial markets in the event of a wide-scale disruption that affects such entities’ trading or clearing operations. The proposal would require those DCMs and DCOs to maintain a business continuity and disaster recovery (BC-DR) plan and BC-DR resources sufficient to satisfy a same-day recovery time objective for trading and clearing as well as geographic dispersal of infrastructure and personnel sufficient to achieve that objective. The CFTC also has proposed conforming amendments to the application guidance and acceptable practices under the BC-DR-related core principles applicable to DCMs to harmonize the language of those provisions with parallel BC-DR-related application guidance applicable to DCOs.

Public Comment on the proposed regulation and amendments must be received within 30 days of publication in the Federal Register. Copies of the proposed regulation and amendments may be obtained by accessing the Commission’s website, www.cftc.gov.

Media Contacts
Scott Schneider
202-418-5174

R. David Gary
202-418-5085

Last Updated: July 14, 2010