On August 13, 2015, the CFTC issued No-action Letter 15-48 (No-action 15-48), extending until September 30, 2016 relief previously granted to non-US swap dealers (SDs) from certain transaction-level requirements under Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act for swaps entered into with non-US persons that are not guaranteed affiliates or conduit affiliates of a US person, when that swap is arranged, negotiated or executed within the US.

This relief can be traced back to a November 14, 2013 staff advisory from the CFTC's Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (DISO), which prompted a heavy response from the market (See Legal Update, CFTC Closes Cross-border Swaps Compliance Loophole). The rule was then challenged and upheld in federal court in September 2014 (see Legal Update, CFTC Cross-border Swaps Rules Upheld in Court).

No-action 15-48 extends the relief previously granted in No-action Letters 13-71, 14-01, 14-74 and 14-140 (see Legal Updates, CFTC Issues Relief from Recent Cross-border Swaps Advisory and Requests Public Comment, CFTC Extends Relief for Non-US Swap Dealers from Dodd-Frank Transaction-level Requirements and CFTC Further Extends Relief from Advisory on Transaction-level Requirements for Non-US Swap Dealers).

As was the case with the previous no-action letters, No-action 15-48 recommends that the CFTC take no action against a non-US SD for failure to comply with:

Transaction-level requirements include swap clearing and real-time data reporting requirements. For more details on these requirements, see Practice Notes, The Dodd-Frank Act: Cross-border Application of Swaps Rules: Transaction-level Requirements and The Dodd-Frank Act: Final Internal Business Conduct (IBC) Rules on Documentation, Confirmation, Reconciliation and Compression for Swap Dealers and MSPs.

The relief, granted most recently under No-action Letter 14-140, was scheduled to expire on September 30, 2015. No-action Letter 15-48 further extends this relief to the earlier of: