CFTC Staff Letters Archive

CFTC Staff Letters Archive provides Letters from 2007 and earlier. For Letters published 2008 or later visit the All Letters page.

There are no Advisory Letters or Other Written Communications for 2007 or earlier.

Date	PDF and Description
09/19/1995	95-87 ; CEAct Section 4m(1);; No-Action Where an FCM requested broad advice on whether its involvement with swaps and certain other derivatives transactions would require it to register as a CTA, the Division advised the FCM to review with counsel its activities and each derivatives transaction in question to determine first, whether such activities implicated the statutory definition of CTA, and if so, whether an exemption from registration, such as that contained in Part 3 5 of the Commission rules, would be available to it.
09/19/1995	95-82; ; CEAct Sections 1a(5) and 4m(1) and Rule 4.14(a)(6) and 4.31;; No-Action (1) An FCM or an IB engaged solely in the business of "guiding" customer accounts in engaging in a commodity interest advisory activity which is neither "solely in connection solely incidental" to no "solely in connection with" his business as an FCM or an IB, respectively, and this required to register as a CTA. (2) An IB that "guides" trading in a majority of its customer accounts must register as a CTA. (3) Rule 4.21(a) does not impose a duty to provide a disclosure document upon persons who are not "registered or required to be registered" under the Act as a CTA. (4) If an FCM's or IB's "guided account" activities do not require one to register as a CTA, no other written disclosures concerning one's guided account recommendations, beyond the "Risk Disclosure Statements" required by Rules 1.55 and 33.7 and all other information that is material in the circumstances, are necessary
09/14/1995	95-81; ; Rule 4.7;; No-Action A CPO operating offshore pools that are "exempt" under Rule 4.7 may keep the books and records of the pools at their respective main business offices, rather than at the CPO's main business office in the U.S., where duplicates of such books and records will be kept by the CPO at its main business office and such books and records will be made available within 72 hours upon request by a Commission representative at the CPO's main business office.
09/05/1995	95-80 ; CEAct Section 4m;; No-Action No action is taken with respect to the failure of two individual general partners of commodity pools to register as commodity pool operators where: (1) neither individual would exercise discretion or control over solicitation, investment, or disposition of pool funds or property, including commodity interest trading decisions; (2) the individuals would be listed as principals of a corporate general partner (and registered CPO) of the pools, and would submit to NFA background checks; and (3) each individual accepted joint and several liability with two existing general partners (who are registered as CPOs) for Commodity Exchange Act and Commission rule violations.
08/30/1995	95-74 ; CEAct Section 2(a);; No-Action The Commission will take no action if futures contracts on the MIB 30 are traded on the Italian Stock Exchange Council's Italian Derivatives Market
08/24/1995	95-73; ; Rules 3.12(a) and 4.31;; No-Action Certain persons associated with a registered US CTA are exempt from registration as APs where such person are listed as principals of the CTA, are Canadian citizens, and will not solicit or direct any marketing efforts to, or accept any capital from, US persons. The registered US CTA also is exempt from the disclosure document requirements of Rule 4.31
08/21/1995	95-72 ; Rule 4.7;; No-Action A charitable foundation may be treated as a QEP with respect to a pool where the charitable foundation's investment decisions are made by an individual who is QEP and has a net worth exceeding $25 million, more than 25 years of professional management experience, extensive experience with interest-rate arbitrage, a long-standing professional and personal relationship with the principals of such pool's CTA, and through this relationship, has detailed knowledge about such pool
08/16/1995	95-71 ; CEAct Section 4d, 7 U.S.C 6d(1994);; No-Action A company that is a registered CTA, and A, an associated person and controlling person of the company, previously requested relief for the company from registration as an IB under Section 4d and the Division granted such relief, subject to certain conditions. Upon reconsideration, the Division reaffirms that as a condition to such relief, in order to protect customers who receive professional commodities services from A, when the compensation that A receives for such services is paid to the company controlled by A instead of to A in his capacity as employee of another entity, the Company must agree to be jointly and severally liable with the entities (or natural persons) from which A's services compensation or fees were paid
08/14/1995	95-94; ; Rule 4.31;; No-Action Relief from CTA disclosure document requirement granted to a registered CTA where: (1) the trading strategy being offered is otherwise only available to QECs for whom there is no disclousre document requirements; (2) the fund is an offshore entity comprised of only non-U.S. persons for whom no disclosure document is required; and (3) the CTA has no other clients for whom it is required to prepare a disclosure document
08/14/1995	95-70 ; Rule 4.31;; No-Action The Division of Trading and Markets exempted a registered CTA from the disclosure document requirements of Rule 4.31 where the CTA's sole client was an offshore commodity pool (the "Fund") which would have no participation by U.S. persons. In addition, the division took a CPO registration no-action position with respect to a British Virgin Islands company controlled by a U.S. company registered with the CFTC as a CPO, where the company served as co-CPO to the fund. The no-action position stipulated, among other conditions, that the U.S. registered CPO file Form 3-R naming the fund as a commodity pool to be operated by it; and the U.S. CPO and the company each provide written acknowledgement accepting joint and several liability for any violations of the Act or CFTC rules relating to their activity in connection with the fund.