Guidance Regarding Compliance with Certain Swap Regulations

The Asset Management Group (AMG) of SIFMA provides comments to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on further proposed guidance regarding compliance with certain swap regulations, RIN 3038-AD85.

SIFMA AMG urges the CFTC to adopt a more streamlined and straightforward U.S. person definition, similar to the one included in the CFTC’s Final Exemptive Order.

In addition, SIFMA AMG makes the following suggestions with respect to the U.S. person definition under the CFTC’s Proposed and Further Interpretive Guidance:

• Commodity pools should not be required to look to the level of its U.S. person ownership to determine its U.S. person status.
• The proposed U.S. person definition could cause undue confusion and administrative burdens, absent clarification, by requiring entities to assess their status under multiple prongs and determine their status centrally on an ongoing basis.
• A commodity pool’s U.S. person status should not be determined based on the status of its operator, manager or fiduciary.  A commodity pool should not be deemed to be a U.S. person by virtue of its operator being required to be registered with the CFTC as a commodity pool operator.
• Market participants should be given sufficient time to comply with a new U.S. person definition and any ongoing requirements stemming from U.S. person status.
• The CFTC should coordinate with U.S. and international regulators on the definition of U.S. person.