no 29/11 Changes to the Trading and Clearing Rulebooks


Lysaker, 3 May 2011

NASDAQ OMX Commodities Europe (the “Exchange”) and NASDAQ OMX Stockholm AB (the “Clearinghouse”) have made updates to their trading and clearing rulebooks for commodities and commodity derivatives, which will come into effect on 18 May 2011.

The updated rulebooks are available at www.nasdaqomxcommodities.com/trading/legalframework

The changes are partly to facilitate the use of Genium INET web trade, a web-based trading application including a sophisticated administration tool which allows members to define trading accounts, trader rights and pre-trade limits, and which is especially relevant for general clearing members (GCMs) who wish to better manage their users’ market exposure. The electronic trading system (ETS) user terms have been amended so that a separate license agreement for use of Genium INET web trade is no longer necessary.

Furthermore, the trading procedures have been modified to re-introduce special provisions for trading errors involving market makers, and there have been some other minor amendments in relation to trading errors.

In addition, some minor amendments have been made to the trading and clearing rulebooks which are mainly of linguistic and editorial nature. These changes are not intended to have any direct consequences for members or otherwise entail any changes to the legal content, but aim to generally support the implementation of the changes described above, to generally improve language and format, and to harmonize corresponding provisions in the ETS user terms and the clearing platform user terms where appropriate.

The changes to the trading procedures and the ETS user terms may be summarized as follows:

Changes to trading procedures

A few minor amendments have been made to the trading procedures:

  • Specific regulation of trading errors involving a market maker has been re-introduced, cf. section 12.3.
  • The exchange may in its own discretion decide to cancel or uphold an exchange transaction that involves only one exchange member, cf. section 12.6 a).
  • The trading error volume threshold for European Union allowances (EUAs) and certified emission reductions (CERs) is changed from 50 000 tCO2 (50 lots of EUA) to 100 000 tCO2 (100 lots of EUA), cf. the transaction error schedule.

Changes to ETS user terms

  • Regulation of log-on identities to the ETS is adjusted, and regulation of trading identities is included, in order to reflect use of Genium INET web trade as well as other client applications, cf. section 2 and 6.
  • Licensees must ensure that the exchange has the possibility to enforce the trading rules towards all users to the extent mandated by the trading rules, cf. section 7.2.
  • Users (traders) may not be located outside the European Economic Area (EAA) without the prior written consent of the exchange, cf. section 7.4.
  • The exchange takes no responsibility for user definable features of the client applications, cf. section 8.2.
  • The licensee must offer and maintain first line support to any of its users who are not exchange traders, cf. section 11.4.

 

For further information, please contact NASDAQ OMX Commodities:

Eivind Grimsø Moe, Associate General Counsel, phone +47 6752 8084/+47 9112 0355, eivind.moe@nasdaqomx.com

 

About NASDAQ OMX
The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. is the world's largest exchange company. It delivers trading, exchange technology and public company services across six continents, with more than 3,500 listed companies. NASDAQ OMX offers multiple capital raising solutions to companies around the globe, including its U.S. listings market, NASDAQ OMX Nordic, NASDAQ OMX Baltic, NASDAQ OMX first North, and the U.S. 144A sector. The company offers trading across multiple asset classes including equities, derivatives, debt, commodities, structured products and exchange-traded funds. NASDAQ OMX technology supports the operations of over 70 exchanges, clearing organizations and central securities depositories in more than 50 countries. NASDAQ OMX Nordic and NASDAQ OMX Baltic are not legal entities but describe the common offering from NASDAQ OMX exchanges in Helsinki, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Iceland, Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius.

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About NASDAQ OMX Commodities
NASDAQ OMX Commodities is the brand name for the NASDAQ OMX Group’s worldwide suite of commodity related products and services. The NASDAQ OMX Commodities offerings include power, natural gas and carbon emission markets and clearing services. NASDAQ OMX Commodities is a trademark of the NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.

NASDAQ OMX Commodities Europe is the trade name of NASDAQ OMX Oslo ASA which is authorized as a commodity derivatives exchange by the Norwegian Ministry of Finance and supervised by the Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authority. All trades with NASDAQ OMX Commodities Europe are subject to clearing with NASDAQ OMX Clearing.

NASDAQ OMX Clearing is the trade name of NASDAQ OMX Stockholm AB which is authorized and supervised as a multi-asset clearinghouse by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority in Sweden as well as authorized to conduct clearing operation in Norway by the Norwegian Ministry of Finance.

For more information, visit www.nasdaqomxcommodities.com.

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