By Tom Kleckner

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday unanimously issued a final order granting SPP’s request to exempt certain energy transactions in the RTO from the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and commission regulations.

The order is similar to the commission’s March 2013 ruling that provided six other grid operators with the same exemption, according to CFTC. But it also exempts those transactions from private rights of action, judicially inferred rights to relief that could have left the RTOs and their market participants as potential targets for lawsuits outside the FERC process.

The commission simultaneously amended its 2013 order to expressly exempt the six other grid operators from private actions, it said. SPP was not a party to the original order because its day-ahead market was not in operation, but it filed a “me-too” exemption in 2013 when it became apparent the market would soon be live. In response, the commission said in May that it never intended to protect the RTOs from private actions.

The ruling was expected after CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad said in a September letter to Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) that he would recommend the commission provide the exemption, reversing his previous position after receiving substantial industry feedback. (See CFTC Chair Flips on Private Rights of Action in RTO Markets.)

Commissioners J. Christopher Giancarlo and Sharon Y. Bowen joined Massad in a seriatim process, in which the commissioners vote in sequence and in private, rather than at an open meeting. Massad and Giancarlo have both issued statements supporting their votes.

Mike Ross, SPP’s senior vice president of government affairs and public relations and a former six-term Arkansas congressman, guided the effort that provided 38 comments against the proposed rule to allow private actions. There were only five comments in favor.

“We’re pleased with the commission’s decision to keep existing exemptions in place,” Ross said in response to the ruling.