17 CFR § 38.251 - General requirements.

---
identifier: "/us/cfr/t17/s38.251"
source: "ecfr"
legal_status: "authoritative_unofficial"
title: "17 CFR § 38.251 - General requirements."
title_number: 17
title_name: "Commodity and Securities Exchanges"
section_number: "38.251"
section_name: "General requirements."
chapter_name: "COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION"
part_number: "38"
part_name: "DESIGNATED CONTRACT MARKETS"
positive_law: false
currency: "2026-04-05"
last_updated: "2026-04-05"
format_version: "1.1.0"
generator: "[email protected]"
authority: "7 U.S.C. 1a, 2, 6, 6a, 6c, 6d, 6e, 6f, 6g, 6i, 6j, 6k, 6l, 6m, 6n, 7, 7a-2, 7b, 7b-1, 7b-3, 8, 9, 15, and 21, as amended by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Pub. L. 111-203, 124 Stat. 1376."
regulatory_source: "66 FR 42277, Aug. 10, 2001, unless otherwise noted."
cfr_part: "38"
---


# 38.251 General requirements.

A designated contract market must:

(a) Collect and evaluate data on individual traders' market activity on an ongoing basis in order to detect and prevent manipulation, price distortions and, where possible, disruptions of the physical-delivery or cash-settlement process;

(b) Monitor and evaluate general market data in order to detect and prevent manipulative activity that would result in the failure of the market price to reflect the normal forces of supply and demand;

(c) Demonstrate an effective program for conducting real-time monitoring of market conditions, price movements and volumes, in order to detect abnormalities and, when necessary, make a good-faith effort to resolve conditions that are, or threaten to be, disruptive to the market; and

(d) Demonstrate the ability to comprehensively and accurately reconstruct daily trading activity for the purposes of detecting trading abuses and violations of exchange-set position limits, including those that may have occurred intraday.

(e) Adopt and implement rules governing market participants subject to its jurisdiction to prevent, detect, and mitigate market disruptions or system anomalies associated with electronic trading;

(f) Subject all electronic orders to exchange-based pre-trade risk controls to prevent, detect, and mitigate market disruptions or system anomalies associated with electronic trading; and

(g) Promptly notify Commission staff of any significant market disruptions on its electronic trading platform(s) and provide timely information on the causes and remediation.

[77 FR 36700, June 19, 2012, as amended at 86 FR 2071, Jan. 11, 2021]