Title: 08-12
The Division of Clearing and Intermediary Oversight provided an Interpretation that a software vendor would not be an introducing broker (“IB”) as defined in Commodity Exchange Act Section 1a(23) and Commission Regulation 1.3(mm) as a result of providing its customers a software application with the ability to route orders for the purchase or sale of commodity futures and options contracts to a futures commission merchant (“FCM”) or IB of their choice. This relief is subject to conditions that: (1) each customer will have established a relationship with an FCM or IB independent of its relationship with the software vendor; (2) the vendor would not recommend, propose, or encourage that customers use any particular FCM or IB, even upon request; (3) the platform would not produce express “buy” or “sell” signals; (4) the software vendor would not solicit or accept orders for any commodity futures or commodity option transaction; (5) fees charged by the vendor would not be related to any fees charged by the FCM or IB for the execution of any futures orders; and (6) the software vendor would not have a membership with trading privileges on any designated contract market (“DCM”) or derivatives transaction execution facility (“DTEF”).