The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have issued a joint request for comment on whether derivatives product definitions, interpretations and jurisdictional lines under Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act should be updated, clarified or harmonized. The review is aimed at innovative and converging market products, including event-based contracts, where firms have raised questions about whether an instrument should be treated as a swap, a security-based swap, a mixed swap or an instrument excluded from the swap definition. The request asks for input on clearer, objective criteria for applying existing statutory definitions and exclusions, including the treatment of mixed swaps, narrow-based security index products, single-security and issuer-event contracts, security options, debt instruments, security forwards and certain futures-related questions. It also seeks views on broader jurisdictional and interpretive issues for novel or emerging products and on whether the agencies should revise or supplement the rules and interpretations adopted in 2012. In parallel, the agencies ask whether compliance with one regulator's framework could in some circumstances satisfy substantially similar requirements of the other, and how any alternative compliance approach should address registration, tailored rules, reporting, surveillance, examinations, enforcement and cross-market oversight. The comment period will remain open for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.

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