Office of the Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets; Government Securities Act Regulations: Large Position Rules

The Department of the Treasury (``Department'' or ``Treasury'') is publishing final rules that establish a new Part 420 providing recordkeeping and reporting requirements pertaining to very large positions in certain Treasury securities. The regulations are promulgated pursuant to the Government Securities Act Amendments of 1993, which authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to prescribe rules requiring persons holding, maintaining or controlling large positions in to-be-issued or recently-issued Treasury securities to keep records and file reports of such large positions. The proposed rules were published to solicit public comment on December 18, 1995. The recordkeeping rules require any person or entity that controls a position equal to or greater than $2 billion in a specific Treasury security to maintain and preserve certain records that enable the entity to compile, aggregate and report large position information. If the Treasury requests large position information, the reporting rules require entities to file a large position report with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York if their reportable position equals or exceeds the large position threshold in a particular Treasury security as specified by the Treasury in the notice requesting the large position information. The Department's large position rules are intended to provide the Treasury and other securities regulators with information on concentrations of control that will enable them to understand better the possible reasons for apparent significant price distortions and the causes of market shortages in certain Treasury securities. Requests by the Treasury for this information are expected to be very infrequent.