CFTC Staff Letters

No-Action Relief Request of Turkish Derivatives Exchange in Connection with the Offer and Sale in the United States of its Futures Contract Based on the ISE-30 Stock Index.

The Division of Market Oversight issued a no-action letter to the IntercontinentalExchange, Inc. (ICE) confirming that the Division will not recommend that the Commission initiate enforcement action against ICE for failure to provide a written demonstration of compliance with the significant price discovery contracts (SPDC) core principle regime within 30 days of issuance of the Commission’s order deeming the Mid-C, PJM, and SP-15 contracts as SPDCs if ICE provides a written demonstration of compliance with the core principle regime for the three contracts by August 18, 2010.

The Division of Market Oversight issued a letter granting no-action relief to permit the International Maritime Exchange ASA (Imarex or the Exchange) to make its electronic trading and order matching system (Trayport), and its Application Program Interface (API), available via direct access to Exchange trading members in the U.S. without obtaining contract market designation or registration as a derivatives transaction execution facility pursuant to Sections 5 and 5a of the CEAct. The relief applies to Imarex trading members in the U.S. that qualify as “eligible contract participants” (ECP) (as defined in Section 1a(12) of the CEAct) trading for their proprietary accounts; Imarex trading members that are registered as futures commission merchants (FCM) that submit orders to Trayport for execution from or on behalf of U.S. customers that qualify as ECPs; firms exempt from such registration pursuant to Commission Rule 30.10 (Rule 30.10 Firms) that accept orders through automated order routing systems for transmission to Trayport from or on behalf of U.S. customers that qualify as ECPs; and Imarex trading members that are registered as Commodity Pool Operators (CPO) or Commodity Trading Advisors (CTA), or exempt from such CPO or CTA registration pursuant to Commission Regulation 4.13 or 4.14, that submit orders for execution on behalf of U.S. pools they operate that qualify as ECPs or accounts of U.S. customers that qualify as ECPs, for which they have discretionary authority, respectively, provided that an FCM or Rule 30.10 Firm acts as clearing firm and guarantees without limitation all such trades of the CPO or CTA effected through submission of orders on Trayport.

The Division of Clearing and Intermediary Oversight provided no-action relief to the general partner of a commodity pool from registering as a CPO under Section 4m(1) of the Commodity Exchange Act, and allowed an affiliated, registered CPO (“designee”) to serve as the CPO of the pool instead, where, among other things: (1) the general partner and the designee are under common ownership and control; (2) the general partner has delegated all of its management authority to the designee; (3) the general partner does not engage in the solicitation of investors for the pool and does not manage property of the pool; and (4) the general partner and designee executed and submitted to the Division a written acknowledgement of joint and several liability for any violation by either of them of the Act or the Commission’s regulations.

The Division of Clearing and Intermediary Oversight took a CPO registration no-action position with respect to the independent trustees of a commodity pool where the independent trustees had no authority to perform CPO functions, the independent trustees were appointed solely to comply with audit committee requirements under the Sarbanes Oxley Act and exchange listing requirements, and a separate registered CPO was authorized to perform all commodity pool operator functions. The Division further granted exemptive relief from certain of the Part 4 regulations to the registered CPO of a commodity pool, whose shares the CPO intended to publicly offer and to list for trading on a national securities exchange. As is discussed in the letter, this relief was in the nature of substituted compliance with those regulations.

The Division of Clearing and Intermediary Oversight (Division) denied a request for relief from the requirement that an introducing broker (IB) provide specific customer account identifiers to the IB’s clearing futures commission merchant at or prior to the time of order entry. The Division found insufficient as grounds for the requested relief the requester’s assertion that compliance with the requirement would result in price “slippage” and poor customer order fills.

The Division of Clearing and Intermediary Oversight issued an IB registration no-action position to a United States bank whose foreign branches wish to refer foreign customers to an affiliated registered FCM. This position was based in part on the branches being located outside the United States and the FCM accepting liability for the foreign branches.

The Division of Clearing and Intermediary Oversight provided no-action relief to the general partner of a commodity pool operator (CPO) from registering as such pursuant to Section 4m(1) of the Commodity Exchange Act (Act), and allowing a registered CPO (designee) to serve as the CPO instead. This relief is subject to conditions that: (1) the designee must serve as the CPO of the pool; and (2) the designee must remain registered as a CPO; (3) the general partner is not subject to a statutory disqualification under Section 8a(2) or 8a(3) of the Act; (4) the general partner and the designee are under common ownership and control; (5) the general partner has delegated all of its management authority to the designee pursuant to its limited partnership agreement and its investment management agreement; (6) the general partner has no employees acting on its behalf, does not engage in the solicitation of investors for the pool, does not manage property of the pool, and does not engage in any other activities that are subject to the Act or Commission regulations; and (7) the general partner and designee have executed and submitted to the Division a written acknowledgement of joint and several liability for any violation by either of them of the Act or the Commission’s regulations.

No-Action Relief Request of Singapore Exchange Derivatives Trading in Connection with the Offer and Sale in the United States of its Mini Futures Contract Based on the Nikkei 225 Stock Index.

Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Request for No-Action Relief in Connection with the Offer and Sale in the United States of its Mini Futures Contract Based on the TOPIX and its Futures Contracts Based on the TOPIX Core30 Index and TSE REIT Index.