Not Your Grandmother's Form 40

A common tool that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission ("CFTC" or the "Commission") relies upon to conduct market surveillance, including monitoring compliance with position limits, will soon enter the digital age – the Form 40 and Form 40S. The CFTC's Division of Market Oversight ("DMO") will issue the new Form 40/40S pursuant to Special Calls to market participants that hold a reportable position in certain CFTC-regulated futures and swaps markets. At a high-level, the Form 40/40S requests information about the ownership and control structure of the reportable trader.

The old Form 40, which has been in place for decades, is a PDF file that market participants submit via email in response to a Special Call. The old Form 40S is essentially the same as the old Form 40, but the old Form 40 requests information about futures trading whereas the old Form 40S requests the same information about trading in certain physical commodity swaps (the old Form 40/40S