December 19, 2016

CFTC Staff Issues Time-Limited No-Action Relief for Derivatives Clearing Organizations and Other Reporting Entities from Certain Obligations on Cleared Swap Reporting

Washington, DC — The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC ) Division of Market Oversight (Division) today announced time-limited no-action relief to derivatives clearing organizations (DCOs) and reporting entities for certain swaps reporting obligations amended by a CFTC Final Rule published June 27, 2016 (Cleared Swap Rule Final Rule). Today’s action relieves DCOs of their obligations to report original swap terminations as required by the Cleared Swap Rule for up to six months or until DCOs can sufficiently test required changes to their reporting systems. This action also relieves all swaps reporting entities of obligations to report new primary economic terms (PET) data fields added by the Cleared Swap Rule for up to three months or upon the acceptance of such PET data fields by swap data repositories (SDRs).

The letter announcing the relief states that the Division will not recommend that the CFTC take an enforcement action against a registered DCO for failure to report continuation data on original swaps accepted for clearing by the DCO. The relief to DCOs is provided subject to certain terms and conditions, including that DCOs provide the CFTC with certain information on all original swaps they clear during the relief period and that DCOs back-report original swap terminations after the expiration of the relief period. This relief will expire on the earlier of 12:01 am on June 27, 2017; or such date that all DCOs that will be reporting original swap termination messages to an SDR have successfully tested the reporting of such termination messages.

The no-action letter also states that the Division will not recommend that the CFTC take an enforcement action against any entity reporting a swap for failure to report the new PET data fields added by the Cleared Swap Rule, subject to the conditions that registered reporting entities back-report these fields after the expiration of relief. The relief is also conditioned on the reporting entity providing any DCO to which it submits a swap for clearing with certain information on the original swap. The relief granted to reporting entities on the new PET data fields will expire on the earlier of 12:01 am on March 27, 2017; or such date that the SDR to which the reporting entity is reporting a particular swap has updated its data standards and is accepting the new PET data fields in its production environment.

[See the letter under Related Links.]

Last Updated: December 20, 2016