In keynote remarks at the ISDA annual meeting, United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael S. Selig, who noted he was speaking for himself and not necessarily for the Commission, set out a policy agenda centered on cutting or clarifying swap regulation through formal rulemaking rather than continued reliance on staff no-action relief. He highlighted planned work on swap data reporting and swap execution facility rules, said the agency plans to soon finalize 2023 amendments to margin requirements for uncleared swaps, and pointed to joint work with the Securities and Exchange Commission on portfolio margining and swap data reporting. Priorities included revisiting the ownership and control reports rule, considering whether Part 20 reporting requirements should be sunset, assessing whether to embed a materiality threshold for swap data error notifications based on existing relief for errors affecting no more than 5% of a reporting counterparty's open swaps in an asset class, recalibrating swap data error correction duties, and clarifying reporting obligations when swaps are cleared by a derivatives clearing organization exempt from Commission registration. On trading rules, he pointed to codifying relief from the requirement that swap execution facilities offer order book functionality for permitted transactions and to a permanent solution for package transactions that combine a swap subject to the trade execution requirement with futures. He also flagged further substituted compliance determinations, including for smaller European Union and United Kingdom investment firms and for some uncleared margin and business conduct requirements. Selig said the uncleared margin changes would remove the asset transfer restriction that blocks otherwise eligible money market fund shares from serving as initial margin when the fund engages in repos, securities lending or similar transactions, specify the applicable haircuts, and give seeded funds up to three years before initial margin exchange is required. He also said the CFTC and SEC expect to issue joint requests for comment in May 2026 as the first step toward completing rulemakings on portfolio margining and swap data reporting.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission 2026-04-30
United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman outlines plans to replace swap no action relief with rulemakings and finalize uncleared margin changes
United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael S. Selig outlined a rulemaking agenda to streamline swap regulation, including changes to swap data reporting, swap execution facility rules, and finalization of 2023 uncleared margin amendments. He flagged possible revisions to ownership and control reports, Part 20 reporting, swap data error thresholds and correction duties, and codification of relief on swap execution facility order book and package transaction requirements, plus further substituted compliance determinations. Selig also proposed allowing certain money market fund shares as initial margin and noted that the CFTC and SEC plan joint May 2026 requests for comment on portfolio margining and swap data reporting.