Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the newly-formed European clearing house LCH.Clearnet have stepped up the transatlantic derivatives war with two moves designed to capture market share from each other's home turf.

The LCH was granted a licence to start clearing US futures and options by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the US regulator, on Wednesday, the same day the CME signed its first client, Birkert Wertpapierhandelshaus, a German derivatives trading company, to its new Frankfurt hub