Katten’s Financial Services client advisory, “CFTC Issues Relief for Cross-Border Trading of Swaps on Qualifying Multilateral Trading Facilities in the European Union,” was recently cited in a Risk magazine article on a February announcement from the European Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission regarding Europe's multilateral trading facilities (MTFs). The article quoted from Katten’s advisory that “even if qualifying MTFs can claim relief under the letter, European pools of swaps liquidity will remain separate from US pools of liquidity on registered [swap execution facilities] for identical products. Neither the qualifying MTF letter nor the joint statement by the CFTC and EC indicate whether, or how, they propose . . . to promote the alignment and unification of these two pools of swap liquidity in an organised and coherent fashion."

(“CFTC-EC Sef Accord 'Will Not Solve Liquidity Split,” February 27, 2014)