Food and Water Watch (“F&W”) and 138 other organizations submitted a December 20th Petition to the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) asking that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s (“CME”) California...more
In the wake of the Great Financial Crisis, global financial markets got their first experience of negative interest rates, something classical economists had long thought to be unworkable if not impossible. On April 20,...more
On August 27, 2020, Judge George B. Daniels of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted a Rule 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings made by financial institutions facing benchmark-rigging...more
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission published in the Federal Register on June 24, 2020 its final interpretive guidance concerning retail commodity transactions involving certain digital assets (2020 Guidance).1 The 2020...more
Bass, Berry & Sims attorney Chris Lazarini reviewed a case in which a putative class of individuals that transacted certain Korean futures contracts on the Korea Exchange through the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s Globex...more
On March 24, 2020, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the Commission or the CFTC) finalized long-awaited interpretive guidance regarding what constitutes the “actual delivery” of a digital asset in the context of...more
After a decade of rulemaking efforts, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is proposing revisions to its regulations concerning federal speculative position limits to conform to the Wall Street Transparency and...more
On January 30, 2020, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC or Commission) voted 3-2 to issue a proposed rulemaking on speculative position limits (the Proposal). The Proposal would apply spot month-only federal...more
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission proposed to revise its position limits regime by increasing to 25 (from nine) the number of commodity derivatives contracts subject to federal limits; by augmenting the number of...more
Last week, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission publicized a cascade of settlements of enforcement actions alleging breaches of laws and rules related to supervision, spoofing, reporting, and misappropriation of...more
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) sent a strong message to Chief Compliance Officers (“CCO”) this week when it held a CCO held accountable for lying to the National Futures Association (“NFA”) during an...more
On July 25, 2019, the Ninth Circuit reinstated the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) lawsuit in CFTC v. Monex Credit Co.,1 interpreting the CFTC’s Dodd-Frank enforcement authority under Commodity Exchange Act...more
I have previously written about issues uniquely affecting individuals who are dually registered as securities representatives (Series 7) and commodities associated persons (Series 3). In an Opinion and Order issued June 4,...more
Few price manipulation cases brought by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ever go to trial. The CFTC case filed against the trading firm DRW Investments LLC (and its CEO) was the exception to that rule and would...more
What is virtual currency? Is it money? Is it a commodity? Is it a hybrid of the two or something else entirely? The answer to the question has profound implications for lenders seeking to secure loans with virtual...more
The CFTC announced that a federal court in New York issued a Consent Order imposing a permanent injunction against CFTC Defendants Heet Khara and Nasim Salim, residents of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), prohibiting them from...more
The CFTC recently approved a futures contract on a dividend index as a non-security based index futures contract over the SEC’s objection that the dividend index contract could be a security future; the CFTC’s actions may...more
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is requesting public comment on a certification of proposed rule amendments that were filed by ICE Futures U.S. Inc. Under the amendments, ICE Futures would base position limits...more
With recent release, the CFTC hopes to eliminate market uncertainty on forward contracts with embedded volumetric optionality. UPDATE (June 18, 2015): On May 12, 2015, the CFTC adopted the Proposal as proposed (as used...more
On September 30, 2014, the Southern District of New York reconsidered the Commodities Exchange Act (CEA) and Sherman Act claims brought against Louis Dreyfus Commodities B.V. and its affiliates in In re Term Commodities...more
On March 19, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit decided Grede v. FCStone, LLC, Nos. 13-1232, 13-1278 (7th Cir. Mar. 19, 2014), an opinion that reinforces the importance of the portability of investment...more
In October 2013, Javelin SEF, LLC (Javelin) and trueEX, LLC (trueEX) self-certified their determinations that certain interest rate swaps are made available to trade (MAT) for purposes of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and...more