On 18 December 2013, the EU Commission published an updated FAQ document on EMIR (last updated on 8 February 2013). Two new questions have been included in Part II of the FAQs:

On 17 December 2013, the CFTC published a press release confirming that LCH.Clearnet SA has been registered as a derivatives clearing organization (DCO), authorised to clear credit default swaps and “such other swaps as the Commission determines LCH.C SA is eligible to clear”.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission may rule, by the end of this week, that regulations regarding the central clearing of swaps in five foreign jurisdictions, including those in Europe under EMIR, do not meet equivalence standards.  If confirmed, this development threatens to leave some firms in the position […]

The CFTC has unanimously voted to elect Mark Wetjen as acting Chairman, filling the leadership void posed by Gary Gensler’s 3rd January departure date.  The extent of Mr Wetjen’s time at the top is unclear; President Obama has nominated Timothy Massad to be the next Chairman, but his Senate confirmation hearing will not take place […]

Introduction On 12 December 2013, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published a consultation paper on draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) on the methodology for the identification of global systemically important institutions (G-SIIs)[1] and draft implementing technical standards (ITS) on uniform formats and dates for the disclose of the values of the indicators used for determining […]

On 11 December 2013, the European Commission published a press release containing remarks made by Michel Barnier, European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services on EU banking structural reform.  Mr Barnier stated that the legislative proposal on EU banking reform will be presented at the beginning of January 2014.  Following the recent publication of the Volcker […]

On 12 December 2013, the European Commission published a press release announcing that on 11 December 2013, Parliament and Council Presidency negotiators reached political agreement in trilogue on the proposed Recovery and Resolution Directive (RRD). The Directive will enter into force on 1 January 2015 and will introduce the bail-in principle which will apply from 1 […]

The five main U.S. regulatory agencies have issued final rules[1], implementing Section 619 of Dodd-Frank- the Volcker Rule. Implementation is delayed by a year, giving banks until 21st July 2015 to be fully compliant. However, the order specifies that proprietary trading operations should be closed “promptly” and that the largest banks must begin reporting various […]

On 2 September 2013, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (“BCBS”) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (“IOSCO”) published their final policy document regarding “Margin requirements for non-centrally cleared derivatives” (see this blog post for more detail). Under the guidance, firms will be required to exchange initial margin (IM) on a gross basis.  In […]