The CFTC issued its first rule specifying the types of swaps required to be cleared. The swaps that will be subject to mandatory clearing are two classes of untranched index credit default swaps (CDS) and four classes of interest rate swaps relating to four currencies (U.S. dollars, British pounds, euros and Japanese yen). The clearing requirement determination applies to swaps currently cleared by four DCOs: CME, ICE Clear Credit, ICE Clear Europe, and LCH.Clearnet Ltd. The attached press release provides a fuller description of the swaps that will be subject to mandatory clearing. According

The CFTC Division of Clearing and Risk (DCR) announced the issuance of two time-limited, no-action letters granting relief from required clearing under Section 2(h)(1)(A) of the Commodity Exchange Act and the Commission’s newly adopted Part 50 regulations for certain swaps entered into by either qualifying affiliated counterparties or qualifying cooperatives. Affiliate Letter: The no-action letter provides that DCR will not recommend an enforcement action for failure to clear a swap entered into by affiliated counterparties if one of the counterparties to the swap is majority owned by the

The CFTC issued an order filing and settling charges that a former employee of of an FCM arranged the unlawful execution of noncompetitive (off-exchange) futures trades over an 18-month period, which constituted "fictitious sales" and resulted in the reporting of non-bona fide prices (because they were neither executed on an exchange nor associated with a related cash or derivatives position). The order requires the former employee to pay a monetary penalty and suspends his registration as an Associated Person for a four-month period and also prohibits Hutchen from violating Section 4c(a) of

SIFMA submitted a letter, dated November 26, 2012, to the various U.S. banking regulators to which SIFMA appended a prior letter, dated September 28, 2012, to the Basel banking regulators, in each case concerning margin requirements. The very short letter to the U.S. banking regulators thanks the banking regulators for reopening the comment period on the banking regulators' margin rule for swaps and also asked that, if the banking regulators materially amend their proposed margin rules for swaps, that the revised rule be reissued as a proposal for public comment, rather than being simply

New rule proposal from NYSE Arca, Inc. Click below to view in full. NYSE: Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness of Proposed Rule Change Amending NYSE Arca Options Rule 6.64 (OX Trading Auctions) with Respect to Opening Trading in an Options Series