June 27, 2014

CFTC Further Extends the Reopened Comment Period for its Rulemaking Proposals on Position Limits for Physical Commodity Derivatives and Aggregation

Washington, DC — The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Commission) today submitted for publication in the Federal Register a 30-day extension of the comment period for two rulemakings:

• A proposed rulemaking to establish speculative position limits for 28 exempt and agricultural commodity futures and options contracts and the physical commodity swaps that are economically equivalent to such contracts (Position Limits Proposal); and
  
  
• A proposed rulemaking to amend existing regulations setting out the Commission’s policy for aggregation under its position limits regime (Aggregation Proposal).

The Position Limits Proposal was originally published in the Federal Register on December 12, 2013, and the Aggregation Proposal was originally published on November 15, 2013. The comment periods for the two rulemakings ended in February 2014.

On May 29, 2014, in an effort to provide interested parties an opportunity to comment on the issues to be discussed at a June 19, 2014 roundtable on the two rulemakings, the Commission published notice in the Federal Register that the comment periods for the Position Limits Proposal and the Aggregation Proposal would reopen, starting June 12, 2014 (one week before the roundtable) and ending July 3, 2014 (two weeks following the roundtable). To provide commenters with sufficient time to respond to questions raised and points made at the roundtable, the Commission is now further extending the comment period for 30 days from the date of publication of the extension in the Federal Register.

Comments should be limited to the issues of hedges of a physical commodity by a commercial enterprise, including gross hedging, cross-commodity hedging, anticipatory hedging, and the process for obtaining a non-enumerated exemption; the setting of spot month limits in physical-delivery and cash-settled contracts and a conditional spot-month limit exemption; the setting of non-spot limits for wheat contracts; the aggregation exemption for certain ownership interests of greater than 50 percent in an owned entity; and aggregation based on substantially identical trading strategies.

Comments may be submitted electronically through the CFTC’s Comments Online process. All comments will be posted on the CFTC’s website.

Last Updated: July 3, 2014