IOSCO has published a letter from Michel Barnier in reply to their own repeated requests for clarification on the status of Asian-Pacific CCP’s under EMIR (posts re. their concerns are here and here). Highlights (such as they are) of his response are as follows: The letter opens with the caveat that although Mr Barnier is […]

On 19 December 2013, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published final draft Implementing Technical Standards (ITS) on the hypothetical capital of a central counterparty under Articles 50a, 50c and 89(5a) of EMIR, as amended by Article 520 of the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR).  The ITS have been submitted to the EU Commission for approval and […]

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”.

This week’s International Financing Review reports that BNY Mellon is closing its swaps clearing service, a mere three years after its inception. “We are exiting the derivatives clearing business in the US due to market and regulatory factors that will limit our ability to grow the business in the future,” said a spokesperson for the […]

On 29 November 2013, ISDA published its standard FOA/ISDA Clearing Member Disclosure Document, a document which facilitates clearing members’ compliance with certain obligations under Article 39(7) of EMIR to: offer clients a choice between individual client accounts or omnibus client accounts; publicly disclose the levels of protection and costs associated with different levels of segregation; […]

On 22 November 2013, the Asia-Pacific Regional Committee of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published another letter to European Commissioner Michel Barnier expressing concern about the recognition process for Asia-Pacific Central Counterparties (CCPs) under the European Markets Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR).  IOSCO reiterated the previous points made in their 6 June 2013 letter on […]

The CFTC has issued its final rules for SIDCO’s and DCO’s to achieve full consistency with the International Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures. This latest set of final rules supplements the 12th August rules, aligning SIDCO’s with the PFMI’s, effectively filling in the gaps.  The 199-page rulebook now covers the following areas in detail: governance, […]

25 October 2013. The CFTC has issued a conditional, time-limited no-action letter exempting SEF’s from Regulations 37.9(a)(2) and 37.203(a). The Regulations respectively deal with prescribed execution methods and prohibit pre-arranged trading. The no-action letter will only apply to those trades which have been rejected for clearing due to operational or clerical deficiencies. In such cases […]

On 23 October 2013, the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) published a report containing a motion for an EU Parliament resolution on a framework for non-bank RRP.  In the motion, ECON: calls on the EU Commission to prioritise recovery and resolution of central counterparties (CCPs) and those central securities depositories (CSDs) which […]