On April 8, the Division of Market Oversight (DMO) of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued two no-action letters providing additional relief with respect to the ownership and control reports final rule (OCR Final Rule), which requires reporting parties to submit trader identification and market participant data electronically on new and updated reporting forms. CFTC Letter No. 16-32 extends the relief provided by CFTC Letter No. 15-52 by providing reporting members with temporary relief from certain OCR reporting obligations. The relief will extend from September 28 to April 29, 2018, depending on the OCR form. For a more complete discussion of CFTC Letter No. 15-52, see the Corporate & Financial Weekly Digest edition of October 2, 2015.

Such relief is conditioned upon a reporting party complying with certain terms and conditions, such as providing test submissions, status reports and other information in the form and manner requested by DMO or the CFTC’s Office of Data and Technology. In connection with CFTC Letter No. 16-32, DMO also issued additional guidance to clarify how the terms “owner” and “controller” should be interpreted in the context of OCR Forms 102A and 102B.

In conjunction with CFTC Letter No. 16-32, DMO also issued CFTC Letter No. 16-33, which addresses the masking of certain reportable information under the OCR Final Rule. CFTC Letter No. 16-33 permits reporting parties to mask certain identifying information on OCR Forms 120A and 120B subject to certain conditions. Reporting parties will be able to mask such information until the earlier of March 1, 2017, or the date when the reporting party no longer has a reasonable belief that reporting such information would violate privacy laws in non-US jurisdictions. Reporting parties will not be required to have outside counsel verify such privacy law issues before taking advantage of the no-action relief. However, reporting parties will need to obtain a formal response from foreign regulators to verify that reporting trader identification and market participant data via Form 102A or 102B would violate the laws of a particular non-US jurisdiction.

CFTC Letter No. 16-32 is available here and the corresponding guidance is available here.

CFTC Letter No. 16-33 is available here.