CFTC orders DCMs to drop domestic geographic restrictions within 30 days

The regulator's new interpretation says designated contract markets must offer impartial access nationwide or explain why they can't The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has given US futures exchanges a month to stop sorting traders by where they live. In a new interpretation of its impartial access requirements, the agency said designated contract markets, or DCMs, must end domestic geographic restrictions that run afoul of those rules within 30 days. Exchanges that can’t comply must tell regulators why. What the CFTC actually ordered DCMs are the federally registered exchanges where futures and other derivatives trade in the US. Under the interpretation, a DCM has two options within the 30-day window. It can remove any domestic geographic restriction that violates the impartial access requirements. Or it can submit an explanation to the CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight laying out why compliance isn’t feasible. The order doesn’t stop at the exchanges themselves. Within the same 30 days, DCMs are expected to make sure the intermediaries that connect customers to their markets are following the impartial access rules and not getting in the way of them. Here, too, the CFTC bui...