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This paper summarizes the requirements of rule amendments promulgated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in 2018 regarding the duties of Chief Compliance Officers (CCOs) of swap dealers, major swap participants, and futures commission merchants (collectively, Registrants) and the requirements for preparing, certifying and furnishing to the CFTC the CCO’s annual report.

This paper provides a close analysis of the CFTC’s final rule amendments that make clarifications regarding the CCO’s duties and seek to harmonize with similar rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) applicable to security-based swap dealers.It also analyzes rule amendments for the CCO’s report that provide clarifications and simplify certain requirements.In each case, it discusses comments from the public and the CFTC’s responses to those comments.

This paper finds that the rule amendments provide a number of helpful clarifications and simplify certain existing requirements for Registrants and their CCOs subject to the rules.While the rules overall achieve greater harmonization with similar rules of the SEC governing CCOs of security-based swap dealers, this paper notes that care will need to be taken by CFTC Registrants who also become registered with the SEC to be cognizant of remaining differences between the CFTC’s and SEC’s rules in order to ensure compliance with the rules of each agency.

This paper provides valuable information regarding the duties of CCOs of Registrants and CCO annual report requirements from an experienced lawyer focused on commodities, futures, derivatives, energy, corporate, and securities regulatory matters.

The purpose of the paper is to summarize the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) recent overhaul of its customer protection rules, which regulate how futures commission merchants (FCMs) and derivatives clearing organizations (DCOs) handle customer funds.

The paper summarizes the most significant aspects of the CFTC's October 30, 2013 customer protection rulemaking, explains FCM and DCO obligations under the new regulatory regime, and sets forth a compliance timeline.

The CFTC's recent overhaul of its customer protection rules impose significant new requirements on FCMs and DCOs in their handling of customer funds.

All FCMs and DCOs that handle customer funds should review these new rules and begin putting into place policies and procedures to ensure their compliance as each new requirement comes into effect.

The CFTC's overhaul of its customer protection regime is new and significant. FCMs and DCOs need to understand their new obligations under the rules. As these new rules are the CFTC's regulatory response to the events that led to the insolvencies of MF Global and Peregrine Financial Group, these developments also should be of interest to futures and swaps market participants generally.

This paper aims to address amendments to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) recordkeeping rules that will require certain market participants to maintain records of all oral communications leading to the execution of a “commodity interest” transaction that are communicated by telephone, voicemail or mobile device. The paper also seeks to address the CFTC's revised rules expanding the current recordkeeping requirements to include written communications related to swap transactions.

The paper reviews the revised rules, adopting release and industry commentary and explains how the requirements of CFTC Regulations 1.31 and 1.35 will be applied to futures commission merchants (FCMs), certain introducing brokers (IBs), certain members of a designated contract market (DCM) or swap execution facility (SEF), and retail forex dealers (RFEDs).

FCMs, certain IBs, certain members of a DCM or SEF, and RFEDs must comply with the oral communications recordkeeping requirements no later than December 21, 2013. FCMs, IBs, all members of a DCM or SEF, and RFEDs must comply with the CFTC's revised recordkeeping rules for written communications no later than February 19, 2013.

All FCMs, IBs, members of a DCM or SEF, and RFEDs impacted by the rule should prepare to maintain records of all covered written and oral communications. If it is technologically or economically impractical for a market participant to comply with the requirement to record all oral communications that lead to a commodity interest transaction by the compliance date, the participant should request an alternative compliance schedule.

This paper provides practical guidance from experienced financial services lawyers.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. The first is to estimate the correlation between market activity and volatility on an exchange that does not use continuous auctions to find prices. The second is to estimate the sensitivity of that relationship to differences in opinions across traders regarding asset value.

Both objectives are accomplished by using seven years of trader‐level data from the Tokyo Grain Exchange, which uses rapid sequences of Walrasian tâtonnement auctions to discover prices. On the TGE, only one futures contract trades at any given time and all of a commodity's futures contracts are auctioned in a rapid sequence, with only seconds between a sequence's auctions. The results are interpreted under the hypothesis that this design causes traders' beliefs to become more accurate and more uniform as a sequence progresses.

Intraday volume is u‐shaped while intraday volatility is downward sloping. The volume–volatility link is positive and stays constant or strengthens as traders' beliefs about value become more precise. The link is driven by trades originating from small futures commission merchants, especially those trades entered on behalf of customers.

Evidence that accounting for cross‐correlations when estimating volatility can have an important effect on estimates is presented. Researchers are encouraged to further explore the implications of cross‐correlations.

The paper includes implications for existing theory, the measurement of volatility, and the design of central exchanges.

This paper uses the TGE as a natural laboratory to test theory. It is the first such study to use data from an exchange that does not use continuous auctions, and the first to document the simultaneous existence of u‐shape volume and downward‐sloping volatility.

The paper's aim is to explain the rules the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has adopted for the segregation of cleared swaps customers' collateral as mandated by the Dodd‐Frank Act.

The paper discusses: the deliberations that led the commission to arrive at the legal separation with operational commingling model (“LSOC”) as the regulatory standard; the characteristics of the LSOC model; and the possible future enhancements to the segregation framework under consideration by the commission, including the guaranteed clearing participant model.

Although the commission has adopted the final rules that will implement LSOC as the segregation model for cleared swaps, a number of significant issues remain open and are likely to be revisited by the commission. Additional changes to the segregation framework may be proposed as the lessons of the MF Global Bankruptcy proceedings become evident.

Practical guidance from experienced financial services lawyers is provided by the paper.

This new act has substantially changed the legal landscape for the futures markets as well as the over‐the‐counter securities markets. The author explores this act with particular attention in the new provision allowing for the trading of futures on individual stocks.

To explain the final position limit aggregation rules and exemptions pertaining to derivative positions in nine agricultural commodities adopted by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on December 5, 2016 and effective February 14, 2017, the notice filing deadline with respect to which was extended by the CFTC by limited time no-action relief until August 14, 2017.

Explains the position limit aggregation rules and exemptions pertaining to equity interests in owned entities, ownership or equity interests in pooled accounts or positions, positions of an “eligible entity” in connection with client positions carried by an “independent account controller,” positions held by futures commission merchants (FCMs) in discretionary accounts or customer trading program accounts, equity interests of underwriters based on unsold allotments of securities in distributions, broker-dealers if the equity interest is acquired in the normal course of business and positions for which information cannot be collected without risk of violating a law.

Unless an exemption from aggregation is available, all positions in accounts for which any person controls the trading or holds a 10 per cent or greater ownership or equity interest must be aggregated with positions held, and trading done, by such person. The final rule adds several new exemptions, including for persons with a 10 per cent or greater ownership or equity interest in an entity so long as certain conditions establishing independence are met. The final rule requires notice filing to take advantage of most exemptions from aggregation.

Practical guidance from experienced lawyers specializing in securities, funds, and investment management.

The purpose of this paper is to describe guidance (“the Guidance”) issued by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), the Federal Banking Regulators and the Securities and Exchange Commission on obtaining beneficial ownership information for certain accounts and customer relationships.

The paper summarizes the principal content of the Guidance, including the importance of customer due diligence (CDD) policies as the cornerstone of a Bank Secrecy Act/Anti‐Money‐Laundering program, the need for a CDD program to identify and verify the beneficial owners of an account, steps that should be included in CDD procedures to protect against heightened risks related to the beneficial owners of an account, enhanced due diligence that is appropriate for accounts that pose heightened risk, the suggestion in the Guidance to implement CDD policies and procedures on an enterprise‐wide basis, and requirements for private bank account and correspondent bank account due diligence programs.

The Guidance appears to expand certain concepts previously applied to banks by the Federal Banking Regulators to other financial institutions, including broker‐dealers, futures commission merchants, mutual funds, insurance companies, and money services businesses. It also appears to expand concepts set forth in Rule 312 of the PATRIOT Act beyond private banking and correspondent banking.

The paper provides expert guidance from experienced financial services lawyers.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the separate but related relief issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that permits the commingling and portfolio margining of centrally cleared credit default swap (CDS) positions held in customer accounts.

The paper provides a brief overview of the bifurcated approach taken to the regulation of CDS; explains the benefits of portfolio margining and the need for portfolio margining relief; and provides an overview of the relief provided by the SEC and CFTC.

The relief provided by the SEC and CFTC may contribute to the efficient use and allocation of capital by market participants; however, the SEC's and CFTC's orders are limited in scope only to CDS products, and the viability of the relief for CDS products will depend upon SEC approval of the margin methodology used by brokers to set margin levels for their customers.

The paper provides practical insights into first of its kind regulatory relief permitting commingling and portfolio margining of centrally cleared derivatives for customer accounts and the requirements incumbent on a market intermediary when implementing a program to commingle and portfolio margin centrally cleared CDS positions.

The aim of the paper is to explain the joint final rules adopted on April 18, 2012 by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) further defining the major categories of swap and security‐based swap market participants, “swap dealer“, “security‐based swap dealer”, “major swap participant”, “major security‐based swap participant” and “eligible contract participant” and to explain the process of evaluating a party's status under the rules.

The paper provides the statutory definition of a dealer, and explains the CFTC's and the SEC's interpretive guidance, including four tests and a discussion of the CFTC and SEC dealer trader distinctions, swaps not considered in determining dealer status, and a de minimis exception. It provides the statutory definition of a major participant, along with the four major categories of swaps and an explanation of the “substantial position”, “substantial counterparty exposure” and “highly leveraged” criteria, along with the exclusion of positions held for hedging or mitigating commercial risk from the substantial position analysis. A Dodd‐Frank amended definition of an eligible contract participant (ECP) along with the final ECP rules is provided.

All swap market participants will need to know whether they qualify as one of these entities because each type of entity figures prominently in the new swap market requirements imposed by the Dodd‐Frank Act.

The paper provides practical guidance from experienced financial services lawyers.