Green Exchange LLC

Green Exchange LLC (GreenX) application to become a Recognised Overseas Investment Exchange under section 287 (and 292) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000

Start date: 2 November 2011
Closing date: 2 December 2011

Back to top

Summary

Green Exchange LLC (GreenX) is a US legal entity headquartered in New York. In May 2010, GreenX opened in London its first non-US office as part of a strategy to establish itself in the UK and in Europe. In connection with this, GreenX has made an application to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to become a Recognised Overseas Investment Exchange (ROIE) under section 287 (and 292) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA).

GreenX proposes to offer a platform for trading environmental financial products. It is jointly-owned by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group and a number of other investment concerns who will be members of and participants in GreenX.

Since March 2008, the 'Green Exchange' has existed as a branded trading platform for environmental financial products under (and, until July 2009, wholly-owned by) the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX, part of the CME Group). In July 2010, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approved GreenX's application to operate as a Designated Contract Market (DCM) in the US and in January 2011 GreenX became a standalone exchange independent from NYMEX, migrating the GreenX environmental futures and options contracts to its own DCM platform from the original listings on the NYMEX platform. CME Clearing provides clearing services for trades executed on GreenX.

Under section 303(3) of FSMA 2000, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) must report to H.M. Treasury, the FSA and the Competition Commission on whether any of the regulatory provisions or combination of regulatory provisions of an applicant for recognition has a significantly adverse effect on competition. When assessing competition in this context, the OFT is likely to pay particular attention to the applicant's rules on participation criteria and the arrangements for clearing and settlement of trades.

The OFT is currently conducting its competition assessment of GreenX's application. As part of this process, the OFT, invites comments from any parties that have an interest in the application.

GreenX's rules can be accessed at: www.thegreenx.com/docs/GreenX_Rulebook.pdf

Back to top

How to respond

If you have any queries regarding the content of this consultation, please contact Praful Depala to whom responses should be sent:

Mr. Praful Depala
Services, Infrastructure and Public Markets (FSMA team)
Office of Fair Trading
Fleetbank House
2-6 Salisbury Square
London, EC4Y 8JX

Telephone: 020 7211 8506

Fax: 020 7211 8505

Or by email to: praful.depala@oft.gsi.gov.uk

The consultation period will end on Friday 2 December 2011. If organisations are considering responding then the OFT would appreciate an indication that this is the case. If no responses are received by 2 December 2011 the consultation will close.

Please note that the OFT may choose to refer to comments received in response to this consultation in future publications. If you consider any document or information that you provide to the OFT to be confidential, that document or information should be placed in a separate Annex and marked 'confidential information' at the time that it is provided to us. At the same time, you should also provide a written explanation as to why the document or information should be treated as confidential. All information received is subject to Part 9 of the Enterprise Act 2002.

If you are replying by email, these provisions override any standard confidentiality disclaimer that is generated by your organisation's IT system.

Back to top

Contacts

Team leader: John Leaning (020 7211 8533) john.leaning@oft.gsi.gov.uk
Project Director: John Riley (020 7211 8143) jon.riley@oft.gsi.gov.uk
Senior Responsible Officer: Sonya Branch (020 7211 8707) sonya.branch@oft.gsi.gov.uk

Media enquiries

Any media enquiries should be directed to a member of our Press Office.  

Back to: Consultations