CFTC Staff Letter 19-11: No-Action Relief from CPO Registration for Entity A

CFTC Letter No. 19-11 No-Action May 07, 2019

Division of Swap Dealer and Matthew B. Kulkin
Intermediary Oversight Director
May 7, 2019
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 (the “Correspondence”) dated December 13, 2018, 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” 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 trustee of the “B” and the “C” (each, a “Pool” and collectively, the “Pools”). Instead, you state that “A” will delegate its responsibilities as CPO of the Pools to “D”, 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”), 3 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.