## Facts

- Bloomberg L.P. operated an electronic, subscription-based platform facilitating over-the-counter swap trading and planned to register a swap execution facility (SEF).
- The Commodity Futures Trading Commission adopted a rule requiring derivatives clearing organizations to apply minimum liquidation times when calculating margin:
  - 1 day for futures and options;
  - 1 day for swaps on agricultural commodities, energy commodities, and metals; and
  - 5 days for all other swaps (including many financial swaps).
- Bloomberg alleged the 5-day minimum for many swaps would increase margin relative to economically similar futures, incentivizing market participants to shift activity toward futures (“futurization”).
- Bloomberg claimed the expected market shift would reduce demand for swaps traded on SEFs and OTC platforms and cause Bloomberg economic harm by driving users to competing futures-based venues.
- Bloomberg sued under the Administrative Procedure Act, asserting the rule was procedurally defective and arbitrary and capricious, and sought a preliminary injunction against imminent implementation.

## Issues

1. Whether Bloomberg had Article III standing (injury in fact, traceability, and redressability) to challenge the CFTC’s minimum-liquidation-time rule under the APA.
2. Whether Bloomberg showed imminent irreparable harm and other prerequisites warranting a preliminary injunction.

## Decision

- The court dismissed the action for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because Bloomberg failed to establish Article III standing.
- The court concluded Bloomberg’s asserted economic injury was too speculative because it depended on a contingent chain of third-party decisions by clearing organizations and market participants.
- The court found the alleged harm was not fairly traceable to the challenged rule given the role of other regulatory and market forces.
- The court held Bloomberg failed to show a favorable judgment would likely prevent the feared customer migration, defeating redressability.
- The court denied the preliminary injunction, finding no sufficient showing of imminent irreparable harm.

## Legal Principles

- Article III standing requires a concrete, particularized injury that is actual or imminent, not conjectural or dependent on speculative future market behavior.
- Traceability is not satisfied where alleged injury turns on independent decisions of third parties and broader market or regulatory forces.
- Redressability requires a showing that the requested relief would likely alleviate the asserted injury, not merely alter one variable in a complex causal chain.
- A preliminary injunction is extraordinary relief and requires, at minimum, a showing of imminent irreparable harm; a failure to show imminence also undermines injury-in-fact for standing.

## Conclusion

The court dismissed Bloomberg’s APA challenge to the CFTC’s minimum-liquidation-time margin rule because Bloomberg’s predicted loss of business depended on speculative, third-party market responses and was not sufficiently traceable to, or likely redressable by invalidation of, the challenged regulation; the court therefore also denied preliminary injunctive relief.


Bloomberg L.P. v. Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n, 949 F. Supp. 2d 91 (D.D.C. 2013)