Washington, D.C. — The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today announced the Market Participants Division (MPD) and the Division of Market Oversight (DMO) are providing a continuation of certain parts of the temporary no-action relief issued in response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic that is scheduled to expire on April 15, 2021. Any prior relief not extended by CFTC Staff Letter No. 21-10 has expired or will expire pursuant to the terms of the applicable CFTC Staff Letter.

Subject to certain conditions, CFTC Staff Letter No. 21-10 provides the following relief, expiring on September 30, 2021:

• Relief from Introducing Broker (IB) Registration and Location Requirements for Floor Brokers (FBs).  MPD is providing a limited continuation of relief from IB registration and location requirements for FBs that normally operate on an exchange’s trading floor and/or other designated premises from which customer orders may be placed.
   
• Relief for Designated Contract Markets (DCMs). DMO is providing a limited continuation of targeted no-action relief for DCMs from certain CFTC regulations related to real-time market monitoring requirements as a result of the displacement of FBs from the trading floor.

On March 17, 2020, targeted, temporary relief was granted to a broad spectrum of market participants to support orderly trading and liquidity as they implemented social distancing measures. [See CFTC Press Release Nos. 8132-20 and 8133-20] To date, the CFTC and CFTC staff have taken more than 20 actions to provide market participants temporary, targeted relief in response to the pandemic. A comprehensive list of these actions can be found at cftc.gov/coronavirus.