On March 31, 2020, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (DSIO) announced the release of a targeted, temporary no-action letter aimed at foreign affiliates of futures commission merchants (FCMs). This relief is meant to ease regulatory burdens in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic. In short, the … Continue Reading
This week, on March 17, 2020, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) released two announcements (see here and here) regarding a series of no-action letters in response to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. The CFTC’s announcements come in the wake of high-profile efforts by other financial regulators to quickly address the financial and regulatory effects … Continue Reading
On August 14, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois entered a consent order (the “Consent Order”)—agreed to by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “CFTC”), Kraft Foods Group Inc. (“Kraft”) and Mondelēz Global LLC (“Mondelēz”)—to resolve long-running market manipulation litigation between the parties.… Continue Reading
Last week, in a denial of a motion to dismiss, a Massachusetts district court ruled that virtual currencies are commodities under the Commodity Exchange Act (the “CEA”) and that therefore the CFTC has authority to prosecute fraud with respect to virtual currencies (see CFTC v. My Big Coin Pay, Inc., No. 18-10077-RWZ, 2018 WL 4621725 … Continue Reading
