Trade Associations Urge CFTC to Extend Position Aggregation Relief

The Managed Funds Association ("MFA"), Futures Industry Association (“FIA”) and Asset Management Group of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (“SIFMA AMG”, and together with MFA and FIA, the "Associations") urged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission ("CFTC") to extend time-limited no-action relief from certain position aggregation requirements under CFTC Rule 150.4 ("Aggregation of positions").

In their letter, the Associations pressed the CFTC to extend the time-limited no-action relief originally granted under No-Action Letter 17-37, which provides relief from notice filing and aggregation requirements under CFTC Rule 150.4, including those related to owned entities, insubstantially identical trading strategies and independent account controllers. (See related coverage.) 

The Associations emphasized that the relief, which has been extended twice since its issuance in 2017 and is currently set to expire on August 12, 2025, has allowed for "commercially practical exemptions" while preserving the CFTC's ability to monitor compliance and conduct market surveillance. They stated that designated contract markets have mirrored this relief under similar conditions and that the letter has streamlined the notice filing process, improving regulatory efficiency by focusing on "affiliate relationships that are most relevant."

The Associations highlighted that market participants have successfully relied on this relief for nearly eight years and warned that failure to extend it would impose "substantial additional regulatory burdens and costs" without offering "discernible benefit" to the CFTC. They stressed that recent expansions of federal position limits, to cover energy and metals contracts and economically equivalent swaps, further underscore the importance of maintaining the relief. As such, the Associations requested that the relief be extended until the effective date of any future rulemaking that codifies the relief provided by No-Action Letter 17-37, stating that such codification would offer a "much-needed permanent solution."