The Financial Conduct Authority in the UK and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the USA have recently announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on the Cooperation and Exchange of Information in the context of supervising covered firms to facilitate more efficient cross-border regulatory cooperation between the USA and Europe (October 2016)

“Whilst the European legislation on common regulation of binary options trading leaves a lot to desire, our firm has been campaigning for a closer cooperation and exchange of information between the FCA in the UK and the CFTC in the USA to provide a better degree of protection and wider safeguards to binary options traders and to the market as a whole – says Gabriele Belli, who heads the Forex, Binary Options and Financial Services Litigation team at Legal Law Limited, the international law firm – This memorandum and the large exchange of internal information between these two regulatory bodies will facilitate a crackdown on binary options firms that are using indecent practices towards investors and we believe that it paves the way for an improved international legal framework regarding binary options markets, brokers and investors”

The Memorandum will apply to any entity authorized, or that has applied to be authorized, by the FCA in accordance with any of the European single market directives mentioned in Article 2(8) of EU Regulation No. 648/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 July 2012 on OTC derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories (“EMIR”), and in accordance with the UK Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (“FSMA”) and the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001 and that is, or will be, regulated and supervised by the FCA (“AE”).

Both the FCA and the CFTC have confirmed their willingness to cooperate with each other in the interest of fulfilling their respective regulatory mandates in the context of supervising firms within the scope of the agreement, particularly in the areas of:

• protecting customers
• fostering the integrity of financial markets
• maintaining confidence in financial markets
• reducing systemic risk

Under the terms of the agreement, cooperation primarily will be achieved through ongoing informal consultations, supplemented as needed by more formal cooperation, including mutual assistance in obtaining information related to regulated firms and entities with respect to their covered matters. The provisions of the MOU are also intended to facilitate the written exchange of non-public information in accordance with applicable laws in the US and the UK.