How to win friends

Speculation has been circling around a possible tie-up between Eurex and BrokerTec Futures Exchange for months now, but the value of the deal has not been fully explored. Most commentators have concentrated on BTEx's US exchange designation, assuming it to be the now defunct exchange's only value to Eurex. True, Eurex will have little use for the trading system or clearinghouse, having already sorted its own arrangements on those fronts, and any residual trading volume has now formally been removed.

But CFTC is likely to grant...