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ARTICLE · 31 AUGUST 2026

CFTC Proposes New CPO Registration Exemption For SEC-Registered Advisers

Gesmer Updegrove LLP
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The CFTC has proposed a new registration exemption for SEC-registered investment advisers operating specified commodity pools, offering relief from CPO registration in exchange for SEC oversight, offering restrictions, participant-eligibility limits, and Form PF reporting. The proposal substitutes one regulator's framework for another while raising critical questions about information perimeters, transition mechanics, and the practical workability of eligibility conditions across two agencies' compliance sy

United StatesFinance and Banking
Braeden Anderson
Braeden Anderson

The CFTC has proposed a new registration exemption for SEC-registered investment advisers operating specified commodity pools. The headline relief is straightforward: a qualifying adviser could cease registering as a commodity pool operator for a qualifying pool, and related commodity trading adviser relief would follow. The regulatory trade is not.

Proposed Regulation 4.13(a)(4) would replace CPO registration with a defined combination of SEC oversight, offering restrictions, participant-eligibility limits, an NFA exemption notice, and Form PF reporting where that reporting is independently required. An exempt pool could also disappear from Form CPO-PQR. The proposal therefore does two things at once: it substitutes one regulator's framework for part of another's, and it asks how much reporting should remain when a manager falls outside Form PF.

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