CFTC’s Reporting Requirements for Futures and Swaps
As required in several provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act of 1936 (“CEA”), the CFTC has traditionally set out reporting requirements for futures and options in Parts 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 21,[4] and after the enactment of the Dodd Frank Act of 2010,[5] for swaps in Parts 16, 20, 43, 45 and 46.[6] Below we discuss CFTC’s most recent proposed revisions to these reporting regimes.
Part 17 Amendments to Requirements for Large Trader Reporting on Futures and Options
The CFTC is amending regulations regarding large trader reporting (“LTR”) for certain positions in futures and options.[7] These rules were first adopted in 1923[8] and were designed to give the CFTC information on futures and options positions that are considered sufficiently large to have an impact on the markets. Part 17 of the Commission’s regulations requires reporting clearing members, futures commission merchants, foreign brokers and certain reporting markets (together, “Reporting Firms”) to file daily reports on their futures and options positions; if any Reporting Firm has a trader with a position that meets the CFTC’s threshold in a futures or options expiration month, that trader’s entire position in all expiration months must be reported. Collecting data from Reporting Firms across the futures and options markets allows the CFTC to aggregate related trader accounts that may be held across various brokers. Data is collected via Form 102 and 71, which allows Reporting Firms to identify “special accounts” as required by the CFTC’s reporting regime. Following submission of the Part 17 reports by the Reporting Firms, individual traders customarily receive the Form 40 request from the CFTC to provide further information relating to their large positions in futures and options.
The amendments to Part 17 remove the 80-character submission standard, delegate authority to designate a modern submission standard, and replace data fields with an appendix specifying applicable data elements. Historically, Reporting Firms have submitted large trader position reports in the highly specific 80-character format. The proposed amendments aim to modernize reporting and ensure compatibility with other reporting regimes. The amendments empower the Director of the Office of Data and Technology to designate modern submission standards, like Financial Information eXchange Markup Language (“FIXML”). They also replace existing data elements with a new set of 50 data elements specified in Appendix C, enabling reporting of positions in newer contracts. Following the enactment of these revisions, the CFTC also published its revised Guidebook for Part 17.00.[9]
Part 43 Amendments to Real Time Reporting Requirements and Part 45 Amendments to Swap Data Reporting and Recordkeeping Requirements
On December 28, 2023, the CFTC proposed revisions to Parts 43 and 45[10] to further update real-time public reporting regulations and swap data reporting and recordkeeping requirements initially adopted in 2012 (and significantly amended in 2020).[11] The proposed amendments to Parts 43 and 45 would allow a unique product identifier (“UPI”) to be employed for the Other Commodity asset class. The proposed changes would extend the UPI to the Other Commodity asset class in the future, in accordance with CFTC regulations governing other asset classes’ UPIs. In addition, the proposed modifications would amend appendix A to Part 43 and appendix 1 to Part 45 to include data elements that standardize the CFTC’s reporting regime with international reporting requirements.
In the proposed amendment, the…
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