The CFTC issued a total of four no-action letters yesterday. A brief summary of each follows: Time-limited no-action relief to exempt swaps floor-trading from the aggregate calculation that defines Swap Dealer status. The relief expires on 1st November 2013. Severely time-limited no-action relief for SEF’s and DCM’s from the one-day business product review for newly-listed […]

On 27 September the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a further 3 no-action letters – this time in relation to swap execution facilities (SEFs). CFTC Letter No. 13-55 CFTC Letter No. 13-55 provides no-action relief to extend the date on which a SEF must comply with certain swap data reporting requirements under Part 43 […]

A quick reminder that the CFTC’s mandatory clearing requirement for interest rate swaps and credit default swaps when entered into by non-financial commercial end users (Category 3 Entities) will begin on 9 September 2013.  Many major businesses and most public companies are included within the definition of Category 3 Entities.  The Commission’s clearing requirement does […]

Following a request from ISDA and in the new spirit of cross-Atlantic amity, the CFTC has extended no action relief for portfolio reconciliation of uncleared swaps (regulation § 23.502) until 15 September 2013. Readers will recognise the date as coincident with the start of EMIR obligations with respect to portfolio reconciliation and dispute revisions. The […]

12th August 2013. The CFTC issued a press release, announcing the approved final rules to implement enhanced risk management standards for systemically important DCO’s (“SIDCO”). The rules are intended to cohere with the BIS-IOSCO Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures recommendations, enabling the FSB-assessed SIDCO’s to continue as Qualifying Central Counterparties under international capital regulations. The […]

Despite industry hand-wringing and earlier indications of flexibility, the CFTC yesterday signalled that it sees little prospect of relaxing its long-standing proposed margin rules.  Current practice allows a broker to use one client’s excess margin to cover the shortfall in another’s, allowing clients up to three days to meet a margin call. The proposed rule […]

19 July 2013. In a press release typical for its constant reincarnation, the CFTC’s DCR issued it’s fifth extension of “time-limited” relief with respect to swaps clearing by cooperatives. In summary, if one of the counterparties to a swap is a cooperative, whose members (or one of them) are non-financial entities, and the swap is […]

Scott O’Malia, the CFTC’s only Republican Commissioner, launched another articulate attack on Dodd-Frank implementation in his 12th July Dissent from Cross-Border Guidance, as usual his remarks are worth reading in full. He opined that the Guidance: (1) fails to articulate a valid statutory foundation for its overbroad scope and inconsistently applies the statute to different […]

One day before today’s cross-border clarification deadline, the CFTC and the EU announced a breakthrough shared approach, which they are calling the “Common Path Forward”. The package of measures is intended to provide clarity, minimise inter-jurisdictional conflict and reduce the possibility of regulatory arbitrage. Like most newly-engaged couples (shotgun or otherwise), the participants had only […]