The IRS today issued Notice 2013-43 announcing a 6-month extension for commencement of FATCA withholding and for registration by FFIs with the IRS. The Notice also provides relief for FFIs located in countries currently negotiating FATCA Intergovernmental Agreements ("IGAs") with the IRS. FATCA withholding was to have commenced on January 1, 2014, with registration of foreign financial institutions with the IRS commencing on Monday, July 15. The Notice provides the following extensions: FATCA withholding now begins on July 1, 2014. This is for payments of U.S. source interest, dividends and

The CFTC Division of Swap Dealer Intermediary Oversight (DSIO) issued a correction to CFTC No-Action Letter 13-45. The letter provides relief from certain designated risk mitigation requirements to registered swap dealers (SDs) and major swap participants (MSPs) organized or established in the U.S. or EU. The correction clarifies that relief is available with respect to all transactions described in the letter that are subject to Section 4s ("Registration and Regulation of Swap Dealers and Major Swap Participants") of the CEA and EMIR. The CFTC issued a corrected letter, which bears the

NFA announced that beginning with pool quarterly reports ("PQRs") due for the quarter ended June 30, 2013, CPOs will have the option of filing their PQR using XML upload in EasyFile, a new feature which will significantly reduce the amount of data needed for each filing. Using this feature, a CPO will upload an XML document to EasyFile for its firm level and each pool level filing required. Once uploaded, the CPO must review the Cover Page and relationship information before submitting the filing. NFA will then validate the filing. In order to use the XML upload feature to file the June 30

Commissioner Chilton commended the CFTC, saying " we’ve done way more than other financial regulators." Lofchie Comment: Commissioner Chilton may be right that the CFTC has done way more than other financial regulators. However, financial regulators are better judged on the quality of their work than quantity. According to Commissioner Chilton, the CFTC may "leave a thread hanging loose." The CFTC would have done better by the country in issuing a definitive proposal for public comment; had it done so, it would have received comments going beyond a loose thread. See: Commissioner Chilton's

The CFTC approved on Friday its "final guidance" on cross-border issues, as well as a related exemptive order. The summary below provides some brief descriptions of the guidance and order. The final guidance is expected to contain (i) an interpretation of the CFTC's jurisdiction under Dodd-Frank (which the CFTC asserts is very, very expansive); (ii) a revised definition of "U.S. person," including an explanation of how the definition applies to (a) offshore funds managed by a U.S. adviser (generally the fund is regarded as a "U.S. person" if either the fund is majority-owned or if the