Lillian A. Cardona (US)

On October 16, 2018, Commissioner Brian Quintenz of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) shared his views on smart contract regulation by the CFTC. In his speech at the 38th Annual GITEX Technology Week Conference, in discussing a hypothetical where code in a smart contract was specifically designed to enable a type of activity regulated…

On October 9, 2018, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) proposed changes to the registration and compliance obligations for commodity pool operators (“CPOs”) and commodity trading advisors (“CTAs”) consistent with relief currently provided by various staff letters and advisories. Comments are due sixty (60) days after the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register. Some key aspects of the proposal include an exemption for multi-jurisdictional CPOs and family offices as well as an exclusion for certain investment advisors. The proposal also addresses disqualification, solicitation and other relief:

On October 2, 2018, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo spoke before the Economic Club of Minnesota, giving a detailed overview of the CFTC’s enforcement program for fiscal year 2017 (Oct. 2017 – Sept. 2018), entitling his remarks “Regulatory Enforcement & Healthy Markets: Perfect Together!”

The CFTC’s enforcement program filed…

On October 1, 2018, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (“CFTC”) Chairman, J. Christopher Giancarlo released a White Paper entitled, “Cross-Border Swaps Regulation Version 2.0: A Risk-Based Approach with Deference to Comparable Non-U.S. Regulation” (“Cross-Border White Paper 2.0”). Chairman Giancarlo intends to direct the CFTC staff to put forth new rule proposals, which if…

On August 8, 2018, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced a notice of proposed rulemaking, which if adopted as proposed, would set out the policies and procedures for clearing organizations located outside of the United States to follow if they want to obtain an exemption from registration as a derivatives clearing organization (DCO).…

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) recently approved two applications from LedgerX – a platform for trading and clearing Bitcoin options – to become registered as a swap execution facility (SEF) and derivatives clearing organization (DCO). These approvals make LedgerX the first DCO and the second SEF approved to facilitate digital currency-related derivatives activity (another…

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (“CFTC” or “Commission”) Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (“DSIO”) recently issued relief to CFTC-registered swap dealers (“SDs”) from compliance with certain CFTC uncleared swaps margin requirements under two No-Action letters (“NALs”).

The relief under these two NALs extends only to those SDs that are obliged to comply with…

Today, in a move on its long-pending proposals, the CFTC: (1) re-proposed its new speculative position limits rules (the “Re-Proposal”), which would impose federal limits on 25 physical commodity futures contracts and their “economically equivalent” futures, options, and swaps; and (2) separately issued final rules relating to position aggregation requirements (the “Final…

CFTC Chairman Massad today announced that he will recommend a one-year extension of the date on which the swap dealer de minimis threshold will drop from $8 billion to $3 billion.  Chairman Massad will recommend the Commission take this action through Commission order.  If adopted, the Commission order would permit market participants to calculate their…

CFTC Staff has published a Final Report on the Swap Dealer De Minimis Exception (Final Report) addressing the level of swap dealing activity that is considered “de minimis” and therefore does not require an entity to register as a swap dealer with the CFTC.  The Final Report provides updated data analysis, and summarizes…