On July 8, the staff of the Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (DSIO) of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued a report containing data and analysis concerning possible exclusions from the calculation of the swap dealer de minimis registration threshold for swaps executed on a regulated exchange and/or cleared by a derivatives clearing organization. The report has numerous charts that estimate the number of registered swap dealers that would drop out of registration under various exclusion scenarios. While it is long on data, the report is short on explicit conclusions. However, Commissioner Brian Quintenz issued an accompanying statement that gives his views on the significance of the report: “First, the report shows that the removal of exchange-traded and cleared swaps from the de minimis calculation would result in no reduction of regulatory coverage. Second, the report highlights once again the glaring deficiencies of using notional value as the registration threshold triggering swap dealer registration.”

The CFTC report is available here.

The accompanying statement from Commissioner Quintenz is available here.