1.31—Books and records; keeping and inspection.
(a)
(1)
All books and records required to be kept by the Act or by these regulations shall be kept for a period of five years from the date thereof and shall be readily accessible during the first 2 years of the 5-year period. All such books and records shall be open to inspection by any representative of the Commission or the United States Department of Justice.
(2)
A copy of any book or record required to be kept by the Act or by these regulations shall be provided, at the expense of the person required to keep the book or record, to a Commission representative upon the representative's request. Instead of furnishing a copy, such person may provide the original book or record for reproduction, which the representative may temporarily remove from such person's premises for this purpose. All copies or originals shall be provided promptly. Upon request, the Commission representative shall issue a receipt provided by such person for any copy or original book or record received. At the request of the Commission representative, such person shall, upon the return thereof, issue a receipt for any copy or original book or record returned by the representative.
(b)
Except as provided in paragraph (d) of this section, immediate reproductions on either “micrographic media” (as defined in paragraph (b)(1)(i) of this section) or “electronic storage media” (as defined in paragraph (b)(1)(ii) this section) may be kept in that form for the required time period under the conditions set forth in this paragraph (b).
(C)
Serializes the original and, if applicable, duplicate units of storage media and creates a time-date record for the required period of retention for the information placed on such electronic storage media; and
(D)
Permits the immediate downloading of indexes and records preserved on the electronic storage media onto paper, microfilm, microfiche or other medium acceptable under this paragraph upon the request of representatives of the Commission or the Department of Justice.
(2)
Persons who use either micrographic media or electronic storage media to maintain records in accordance with this section must:
(i)
Have available at all times, for examination by representatives of the Commission or the Department of Justice, facilities for immediate, easily readable projection or production of micrographic media or electronic storage media images;
(ii)
Be ready at all times to provide, and immediately provide at the expense of the person required to keep such records, any easily readable hard-copy image that representatives of the Commission or Department of Justice may request;
(iii)
Keep only Commission-require records on the individual medium employed (e.g., a disk or sheets of microfiche);
(iv)
Store a duplicate of the record, in any medium acceptable under this regulation, at a location separate from the original for the period of time required for maintenance of the original; and
(v)
Organize and maintain an accurate index of all information maintained on both the original and duplicate storage media such that:
(B)
The index is available at all times for immediate examination by representatives of the Commission or the Department of Justice;
(D)
Both the original index and the duplicate index are preserved for the time period required for the records included in the index.
(i)
Be ready at all times to provide, and immediately provide at the expense of the person required to keep such records, copies of such records on such approved machine-readable media as defined in § 15.00(1) of this chapter which any representative of the Commission or the Department of Justice may request. Records must use a format and coding structure specified in the request.
(ii)
Develop and maintain written operational procedures and controls (an “audit system”) designed to provide accountability over both the initial entry of required records to the electronic storage media and the entry of each change made to any original or duplicate record maintained on the electronic storage media such that:
(A)
The results of such audit system are available at all times for immediate examination by representatives of the Commission or the Department of Justice;
(B)
The results of such audit system are preserved for the time period required for the records maintained on the electronic storage media; and
(C)
The written operational procedures and controls are available at all times for immediate examination by representatives of the Commission or the Department of Justice.
(A)
Maintain, keep current, and make available at all times for immediate examination by representatives of the Commission or Department of Justice all information necessary to access records and indexes maintained on the electronic storage media; or
(B)
Place in escrow and keep current a copy of the physical and logical format of the electronic storage media, the file format of all different information types maintained on the electronic storage media and the source code, documentation, and information necessary to access the records and indexes maintained on the electronic storage media.
(4)
In addition to the foregoing conditions, any person who uses only electronic storage media to preserve some or all of its required records (“Electronic Recordkeeper”) shall, prior to the media's use, enter into an arrangement with at least one third party technical consultant (“Technical Consultant”) who has the technical and financial capability to perform the undertakings described in this paragraph (b)(4). The arrangement shall provide that the Technical Consultant will have access to, and the ability to download, information from the Electronic Recordkeeper's electronic storage media to any medium acceptable under this regulation.
(i)
The Technical Consultant must file with the Commission an undertaking in a form acceptable to the Commission, signed by the Technical Consultant or a person duly authorized by the Technical Consultant. An acceptable undertaking must include the following provision with respect to the Electronic Recordkeeper:
With respect to any books and records maintained or preserved on behalf of the Electronic Recordkeeper, the undersigned hereby undertakes to furnish promptly to any representative of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission or the United States Department of Justice (the “Representative”), upon reasonable request, such information as is deemed necessary by the Representative to download information kept on the Electronic Recordkeeper's electronic storage media to any medium acceptable under 17 CFR 1.31. The undersigned also undertakes to take reasonable steps to provide access to information contained on the Electronic Recordkeeper's electronic storage media, including, as appropriate, arrangements for the downloading of any record required to be maintained under the Commodity Exchange Act or the rules, regulations, or orders of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, in a format acceptable to the Representative. In the event the Electronic Recordkeeper fails to download a record into a readable format and after reasonable notice to the Electronic Recordkeeper, upon being provided with the appropriate electronic storage medium, the undersigned will undertake to do so, at no charge to the United States, as the Representative may request.
(c)
Persons employing an electronic storage system shall provide a representation to the Commission prior to the initial use of the system. The representation shall be made by the person required to maintain the records, the storage system vendor, or another third party with appropriate expertise and shall state that the selected electronic storage system meets the requirements set forth in paragraph (b)(1)(ii) of this section. Persons employing an electronic storage system using media other than optical disk or CD-ROM technology shall so state. The representation shall be accompanied by the type of oath or affirmation described in § 1.10(d)(4).
(d)
Trading cards, documents on which trade information is originally recorded in writing, written orders required to be kept pursuant to § 1.35(a), (a-1)(1), (a-1)(2) and (d), and paper copies of electronically filed certified Forms 1-FR and FOCUS Reports with the original manually signed certification must be retained in hard-copy for the required time period.
(Approved by the Office of Management and Budget under control numbers 3038-0007 and 3038-0022)