On September 25, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Division of Market Oversight (DMO) issued Staff Letter No. 17-45 (Staff Letter), which both extends current relief, and provides additional relief, to reporting parties that must comply with the reporting obligations required by the ownership and control reports (OCR) final rule (OCR Final Rule). DMO is providing this relief in response to the compliance challenges reporting parties have encountered with respect to certain OCR reporting obligations.

The Staff Letter addresses these challenges, in part, by extending the no-action relief provided in Staff Letter No. 16-32. (For a more complete discussion of Staff Letter No. 16-32, please refer to the April 15, 2016, edition of Corporate and Financial Weekly Digest). Such relief includes, but is not limited to, (1) providing reporting parties with two additional days to accurately report the names of trading account and volume threshold account owners, and (2) increasing the threshold for reporting certain data from 50 contracts to 250 contracts. The Staff Letter also provides reporting parties with several additional types of new relief, including relief from (a) the requirement to file annual refresh updates of Forms 102A, 102B and 102S (conditioned on filing timely and complete change updates), and (b) providing information on Forms 40 and 40S regarding those who have direct or indirect influence on, or exercise authority over, but not control of, a reporting party’s trading (Question 12).

The relief provided in the Staff Letter will remain in effect until the earlier of (1) the later of the applicable effective date or compliance date of a CFTC action, such as a rulemaking or order addressing such obligation, and (2) September 28, 2020.

Staff Letter No. 17-45 is available here.