CFTC Extends Relief on Fingerprinting Due to COVID-19

On July 17, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (DSIO) announced that it has extended the time period for the no-action relief provided in CFTC Staff Letter No. 20-16 to registrants listing new principals and to applicants for registration as associated persons (APs) from the requirement to submit a fingerprint card.

The relief extends until September 30 or any earlier date on which the National Futures Association (NFA) resumes the processing of fingerprints.

Principals and APs relying upon the relief will still be required to submit their fingerprints to NFA within 30 days of NFA’s resumption of fingerprint processing.

The CFTC release is available here.

CFTC Staff Letter No. 20-16 is available here.

CFTC Approves Exempt SEF Amendment Order for Certain EU MTFs and OTFs

On July 23, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission held an open meeting at which it approved an Amendment Order that (1) exempted 16 additional multilateral trading facilities (MTFs) and organized trading facilities (OTFs) authorized within the European Union (EU) from the requirement to register as swap execution facilities (SEFs); and (2) clarified the application of the existing order to UK based MTFs and OTFs during the UK’s Brexit transition period.

The Amendment Order contains a total of 16 MTFs and OTFs which will be added to the SEF registration exemption order granted in December 2017 and amended in December 2018 (see the December 15, 2017 and December 7, 2018 editions of Corporate & Financial Weekly Digest, respectively). These trading facilities, located in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK, include the first EU trading facilities located outside of the UK to benefit from such exemption order. The full list of 16 additions is below:

• 360 Treasury Systems AG;

• Aurèl BGC OTF;

• BTFE;

• CAPI OTF;

• CIMD OTF;

• Digital Vega FX;

• EBS MTF (home country has changed to the Netherlands);

• HPC OTF;

• ICAP EU OTF;

• iSWAP Euro B.V.;

• KBL OTF;

• TP ICAP EU MTF;

• Tradeweb EU B.V.;

• Tradition-NEX OTF;

• TSAF OTC OTF; and

• Tullett Prebon EU OTF.

In relation to the UK’s departure from the EU, the CFTC confirmed that each OTF and MTF authorized within the UK and listed in the exemption order will continue to be exempt from SEF registration during the Brexit transition period (currently due to end on December 31, 2020).

More information on the Amendment Order is available here.