CFTC Amends Chief Compliance Officer Duties and Annual Report Requirements

On August 21, 2018, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “CFTC”) unanimously approved final amendments (the “Amendments”) to its regulations governing chief compliance officer (“CCO”) duties and annual compliance report requirements for swap dealers, major swap participants and futures commission merchants (together, “Registrants”) (the “CCO Rule”).

The Amendments seek to streamline and clarify the CCO Rule, as well as align the CCO Rule with the corresponding Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) regulations governing CCOs of security-based swap dealers and major security-based swap participants (the “SEC CCO Rule”). In particular, the Amendments significantly streamline and help harmonize the content of the annual compliance report. However, the CFTC declined to fully harmonize the CCO’s duties with parallel provisions of the SEC CCO Rule. Specifically, the CFTC emphasized that the CCO Rule requires CCOs to take a more active role in oversight of regulated activities, rather than the advisory role more traditionally associated with CCOs in the securities industry. 

The CFTC justified the departures from the SEC CCO Rule in respect of these duties by referring to the differences between the Registrants and the SEC-regulated entities. The CFTC did not, however, take these differences into account by adopting more flexible reporting lines, as commenters had requested. If anything, the Amendments reinforce the CFTC’s expectations regarding escalation of issues by the CCO to the highest levels of management of a Registrant.