Among its many provisions, the Dodd-Frank Act amended the definitions of Commodity Pool Operator (“CPO”) and Commodity Trading Advisor (“CTA”) to include firms managing funds or accounts that engage in “swaps.” The CFTC recently defined “swaps” very broadly. As a result of these developments, firms engaged in a broad range of swaps transactions that were not previously required to register as CPOs or CTAs must now register or find a registration exemption on which to rely. For a firm that is required to register, the firm’s “Associated Persons” ordinarily must satisfy a proficiency examination requirement. However, there is no proficiency examination specific to swaps and none of the existing proficiency examinations test for either the product or regulatory knowledge that is relevant to swaps activities.

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