ICE Futures Exchange Amends Aggregation Rule

ICE Futures, U.S. submitted amendments to its Rule 6.12 ("Aggregation of Positions") that will become effective on March 18, 2016. The substance of amended Rule 6.12 will be similar but not identical to the CFTC-proposed aggregation rule. Rule 6.12 sets forth the ICE Futures requirement that all positions which are held by any person, or the trading of which is controlled by such person, must be aggregated for purposes of determining compliance with applicable position limits and position accountability levels.

The amendments include two exceptions to the requirement to aggregate commonly held positions: (i) an exception when the sharing of information associated with the aggregation of an owned entity could be a legal violation, and (ii) an exception when the decision-making and trading control of an owned entity are independent and there are independent procedures designed to preclude the possibility of traders gaining access to information about each other's trades. The latter exclusion, however, is not available to any contracts that currently are subject to federal position limits.