Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Division of Clearing and Risk (DCR) today announced an extension of time for compliance in order to provide additional time for market participants to coordinate on the communication of limits for give-ups and bunched orders for futures and swaps. This extension of time is intended to provide sufficient time to transition to fully compliant pre-trade screening no later than June 1, 2013.

The Division of Clearing and Risk issued a letter interpreting Regulation 39.13(g)(8)(ii) (customer margin rule) to clarify that registered derivatives clearing organizations, in establishing customer initial margin requirements, may preserve historical practices by which customer initial margin requirements are based on the type of customer account and reflect the application of prudential standards that result in FCMs collecting customer initial margin at levels commensurate with the risk presented by each type of customer account.

DCR, DSIO and DMO issued a no-action letter that modifies the temporary, no-action relief previously issued by DCIO and DMO from certain self-effectuating provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act and the CEA that took effect on July 16, 2011, but that require further definition and may not be eligible for the exemptive relief provided by an order issued by the Commission on July 14, 2011 pursuant to section 4(c) of the CEA (July 14 Order).