CFTC Staff Letter 17-46: No-Action Relief from CPO Registration via Delegation

Division of Swap Dealer and Eileen T. Flaherty Intermediary Oversight Director U.S. COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION Three Lafayette Centre 1155 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC 20581 Telephone: (202) 418-6700 Facsimile: (202) 418-5528 eflaherty@cftc.gov CFTC Letter No. 17-46 No-Action Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight RE: Request for No-Action Relief from the Requirement to Register as a Commodity Pool Operator under Section 4m(1) of the Commodity Exchange Act Dear :
This is in response to your letter dated May 22, 2017, to the Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (“Division”) of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“Commission”). In the letter, you request on behalf of “A” and “B”, that “B” receive relief from the requirement to register with the Commission as a commodity pool operator (“CPO”) under section 4m(1) of the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA” or “Act”)1 in connection with its role as director of certain commodity pools listed in Appendix A (the “Pools”). Instead, you state that “B” will delegate certain of its responsibilities as the CPO of the Pools to “A” pursuant to the applicable requirements of CFTC Staff Letter No. 14-126 (“Letter 14-126”),2 except for criterion 6 therein. Background On May 12, 2014, the Division issued CFTC Staff Letter No. 14-69 (“Letter 14-69”), which was in response to numerous requests asking that the Division provide no-action relief for failure to register as a CPO under section 4m(1) of the Act, if another person would serve as the registered CPO of the commodity pool at issue in lieu of the requesting CPO. Letter 14-69 developed a standardized, streamlined approach pursuant to which the Division addressed these types of relief requests, and set forth certain requirements that were based on prior staff no-action letters.