News & Insights

Help
50 News Results

The Asset Management Group of SIFMA ("SIFMA AMG") and the Managed Funds Association ("MFA") have submitted comments to the CFTC requesting interpretive guidance and relief on the application of CFTC Rule 1.35(a) ("Records of Commodity, Interest and Related Cash or Forward Transactions") to asset managers. SIFMA AMG and the MFA request that the CFTC guidance and relief take one of the following forms (expressed in order of preference): exempt Asset Managers that participate on swap execution facilities ("SEFs") from the oral and written recordkeeping requirements; suspend and repropose the Rule

MFA, the Investment Company Institute, the Investment Adviser Association, the Alternative Investment Management Association, and the Asset Management Group of SIFMA (the "Associations") submitted a letter to the CFTC, following up on a January 2013 letter, requesting relief to permit sponsors of privately offered investment funds and registered investment companies to net certain uncleared swaps held by a fund for compliance with a CPO de minimis trading registration exemption. The Associations amended the January 2013 letter to request that the CFTC Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary

The Managed Funds Association ("MFA") and the Alternative Investment Management Association ("AIMA") submitted a letter to John Ramsay, Acting Director of the SEC's Division of Trading and Markets, to express buy-side concerns with the SEC's requirements for approving individual broker-dealer/futures commission merchant margin methodologies for the CDS customer portfolio margin program. In the letter, the MFA and AIMA request that the SEC make permanent its six-month uniform customer margin level. The letter asserts that the current uncertainty as to the eventual future minimum margin level

The CFTC's new rule that requires all CFTC members registered as introducing brokers, commodity pool operators or commodity trading advisors to become and remain members of at least one registered futures association ( i.e., the National Futures Association) was published in the Federal Register. The effective date for the Final Rule is November 13, 2015. All members who are subject to the Final Rule must comply by December 31, 2015.

The Division of Clearing and Risk of the CFTC announced that the second phase of required clearing for certain iTraxx credit default swap ("CDS") indices has begun for Category 2 Entities. Category 2 Entities include commodity pools, private funds, and persons predominately engaged in activities that are in the banking business or in activities that are financial in nature, except for third-party subaccounts. These entities are required to begin clearing iTraxx CDS indices that are subject to the clearing requirement under section 2(h) ("Clearing Requirements") of the CEA and Regulations 50.2