Following on from the announcement from the FSA about ICE (see previous article), and hot on the heels of Liffe's announced intention to create LiffeClear, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has stepped in and called for feedback from industry "interested parties" on whether it should be investigating competition issues in the derivatives clearing and settlement market.

This may also have been prompted by Clara Furse (the Chief Executive of the LSE) who earlier this year was criticising Liffe's plans for creating a vertical model for exchanges (and thus locking in participants from execution up to the point of clearing). In a statement made today she is quoted as saying that the decision whether to refer ICE's plans to set up a clearing house to the competition commission is "pivotal and will reverberate far beyond the ICE market".

In its press release the OFT states that although it had "...concluded that the recognition of ICE Clear would not lead to a significantly adverse effect on competition and a further investigation by the Competition Commission was not required..." it also recognised that many in the industry had expressed concerns and was therefore looking for feedback and "...would welcome views from interested parties that would inform the OFT's prioritisation decision as to whether to undertake any work looking at clearing and settlement in the derivatives market..."