The European Commission has published its decision to grant equivalence to those designated contract markets (DCMs) in the U.S. that operate under the regulatory oversight of the CFTC, in accordance with the European Markets Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). The Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2016/1073 was published in the Official Journal (OJ) of the EU on 1 July and will come into force on 22 July 2016.
The decision states that it should be concluded that, “the legally binding requirements for DCMs established in the USA deliver results equivalent to those of the requirements laid down in Title III of Directive 2004/39/EC.” [MiFID I]
A copy of the Implementing Decision is available here.
The following DCMs have been deemed equivalent to European regulated markets:
- Cantor Futures Exchange, L.P.
- CBOE Futures Exchange, LLC
- Chicago Board of Trade (Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.)
- Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Inc.
- Commodity Exchange, Inc.
- ELX Futures, L.P.
- Eris Exchange, LLC
- ICE Futures U.S., Inc.
- Minneapolis Grain Exchange, Inc.
- Nasdaq Futures, Inc.
- New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.
- Nodal Exchange, LLC
- North American Derivatives Exchange, Inc.
- OneChicago LLC
- TrueEX LLC
This equivalence decision is important, as products traded on equivalent third-country markets (in this case DCMs subject to CFTC regulatory oversight) no longer fall under the OTC derivative definition under EMIR Article 2(7) and therefore do not need to be included within the calculation of the clearing threshold for the clearing obligation under EMIR.
