August 10, 2017

CFTC Staff Grants Relief to Market Participants from Certain Position Aggregation Requirements

Washington, DC — The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Division of Market Oversight (DMO) today granted relief to market participants in complying with certain position aggregation requirements. This relief is being provided until August 12, 2019.  Previous relief was set to expire on August 14, 2017.

During the period of the time-limited no-action relief issued today, DMO will not recommend that the CFTC take enforcement action for a market participant’s failure to comply with certain position aggregation requirements under CFTC Regulation 150.4, provided the market participant complies with the terms of the relief.

Specifically, this relief:

• Revises the notice filing relief provided in CFTC Staff Letter No. 17-06;
• Revises the definitional conditions, for purposes of complying with the aggregation requirements, for eligible entities, independent account controllers and commodity trading advisors; and
• Limits the aggregation requirements for the “substantially identical trading strategies” rule to circumstances where the positions in more than one account or pool are held in order to willfully attempt to circumvent applicable position limits.

CFTC Staff Letter No. 17-06, which has been providing temporary relief from all of the notice filing requirements under CFTC Regulation 150.4(c) to any person eligible to rely on an exemption from aggregation under CFTC Regulation 150.4(b), expires at 12:01 a.m. on August 14, 2017.  From that point forward, except as otherwise provided in the time-limited no-action letter issued today, market participants must comply with all applicable position limits in CFTC Regulation 150.2 and with all position aggregation requirements in CFTC Regulation 150.4.

Last Updated: August 10, 2017