Suing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission didn't prevent CME Group, the nation's largest futures exchange operator, from being registered as a Swap Data Repository (SDR).

CME was named by the Commission last week as the third entity to gain that designation. The category of CFTC registered entities was created by the Dodd-Frank Act to collect and maintain swap transaction data and information. CME was provisionally registered as a swap data repository for the interest rate, credit, foreign exchange, and other commodity asset classes.

CME had filed a lawsuit on Nov. 8 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking an injunction against compliance with rules that implement the swap data reporting regulatory regime. At the crux of the suit was a reluctance to report its own swaps trading data to competitors, two of which received an SDR designation ahead of it.

On Nov. 12, one of those competitors, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation's (DTCC) subsidiary, DTCC Data Repository, filed a motion for leave to intervene in the case. The motion was a formal request to the court asking that DDR, as a registered swap data repository, "be allowed to participate on the side of the CFTC and defend its swap data reporting rules."

“The best way to ensure transparency in the marketplace is to have all trades, cleared and un-cleared, reported to a swap data repository and to ensure these SDRs provide open access to all market participants,” wrote Larry Thompson, General Counsel for DTCC. “Counterparties need to make the decision regarding which SDR they report to, and registered entities offering SDR services cannot bundle those services together with non-SDR services.”

On Nov. 21, CME announced its SDR designation, and the new CME Repository Service, but has yet to comment on whether the decision will affect its legal challenge. Thus far, the only other provisional SDR designation announced by the CFTC is Intercontinental Exchange's ICE Trade Vault.