Key takeaways:

• The CFTC recently adopted rule amendments expanding the exemptive relief available to non-U.S. commodity pool operators (CPOs) and other foreign intermediaries (futures clearing merchants, introducing brokers and commodity trading advisors) that have only foreign located persons and international financial institutions as clients or participants.
• For CPOs, three key changes are (1) the introduction of a pool-by-pool exemption approach, (2) the exclusion of certain seed capital investments by US affiliates of the CPO when determining whether the relevant pool is limited to non-US participants and (3) the inclusion of a safe harbor mechanism.