In a press release today, The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “Commission”) unanimously approved a final rule amending Regulation 1.31. The Commission is amending the recordkeeping obligations set forth in Commission regulations along with corresponding technical changes to certain provisions regarding retention of oral communications and record retention requirements…
The global compliance deadline for implementation of variation margin requirements for uncleared swap transactions is March 1, 2017. Unless an exception is available, the rules generally require swap dealers to collect and post variation margin with no credit threshold. The rules require the parties to enter into new or amended…
The CFTC’s recent enforcement against Bitfinex’s financed trading activities demonstrates the Commission’s increasing interest in virtual currency and digital assets. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is further expanding its oversight of virtual currency exchanges and digital assets in general. On June 2, 2016, Bitfinex (a Hong Kong-based bitcoin…
The CFTC has approved a final rule that removes reporting and recordkeeping requirements for trade option counterparties that are neither swap dealers nor major swap participants (Non-SD/MSPs). The removal of the reporting requirements also applies to commercial end users transacting in trade options connected to their business. Regarding the reporting…
At the end of this month, the annual updating amendments for investment advisers’ Form ADV will be due. The following are some of the important annual compliance obligations investment advisers either registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) or with a particular state (“Investment Adviser”) and commodity pool…
On November 3, 2015, an Illinois federal jury convicted Michael Coscia, a high-frequency commodities trader, of six counts of commodities fraud and six counts of spoofing—entering a buy or sell order with the intent to cancel before the order’s execution.1 Coscia’s conviction was the first under the criminal anti-spoofing provisions…
On November 18, 2015, the staff from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (“CFTC”) Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight issued a swap dealer de minimis exception preliminary report (“Preliminary Report”). The Preliminary Report was issued pursuant to the SEC and CFTC joint regulation defining the term “swap dealer”…
Certain Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) exemptions require annual affirmation, including CPO exemptions under Regulation 4.5, 4.13(a)(1), 4.13(a)(2), 4.13(a)(3), and 4.13(a)(5) and CTA exemptions under Regulation 4.14(a)(8). If you rely on one of these exemptions, you must affirm the annual claim of exemption by March 2, 2015 using the NFA…
Annual Compliance Obligations—What You Need To Know As the new year is upon us, there are some important annual compliance obligations Investment Advisers either registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) or with a particular state (“Investment Adviser”) and Commodity Pool Operators (“CPOs”) or Commodity Trading Advisors (“CTAs”)…
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that on December 16, 2014, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois entered a Consent Order for permanent injunction against AlphaMetrix, LLC (AlphaMetrix), a Chicago-based Commodity Pool Operator (CPO) and Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA), and its parent company AlphaMetrix…