SIFMA Request for Guidance on Applicability of Commodity Pool Regulation to Insurance-Linked Securities

SIFMA submitted a letter to the CFTC requesting the Commission to provide interpretive guidance and other appropriate relief with the result that insurance-linked securities (ILS) transactions will not be regulated as commodity pools under the Commodity Exchange Act by Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act. The request for relief extends to those ILS transactions that do not satisfy the non-exclusive safe harbor for certain insurance transactions not being a swap as a result of (i) the cedant's primary regulator being outside the U.S. and consequently failing to meet the "Provider" test and/or (ii) the form or terms of documentation failing to meet the "Product" or "Enumerated Product" tests under the safe harbor.

View letter in full here (links externally to PDF).