On 1 October 2013 Steve Maijoor, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) Chair delivered a speech at the BWF/ICMA Capital Markets Conference.  Mr  Maijoor indicated that there will be no delay to the reporting date for Exchange Traded Derivatives (ETDs) since ESMA will provide some questions and answers on ETD reporting prior to the […]

In a surprise move, the EC announced yesterday that it will not take ESMA’s advice, counselling a one year delay to the start of futures reporting under EMIR. Full reporting for exchange-traded derivatives will begin in January 2014 as per the original timetable. Risk quotes EC EMIR tsar Patrick Pearson,”The decision has been taken that […]

On 17 September 2013, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published: a list of responses to its 12 July 2013 discussion paper on the clearing obligation under EMIR; and a list of responses to its 17 July 2013 discussion paper on draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) on contracts having a direct, substantial and foreseeable […]

On 13 September 2013, a delegated Regulation (Regulation 876/2013) containing regulatory technical standards (RTS) on colleges for central counterparties (CCPs) was published in the Official Journal of the EU (OJ). The RTS which are required under Article 18 of EMIR, address operational aspects related to the organization and governance of supervisory colleges that must be […]

A scant six days before the submission window closes, the Reserve Bank of India has confirmed that it will allow its country’s CCP’s to apply for ESMA approval. Once the initial application is made, the CCP’s are then granted up to 30 business days to finalise their application; ESMA then has 180 working days to […]

3rd September 2013. ESMA published its latest advice to the European Commission with respect to extra-territorial equivalence with EMIR. The advice covers: central clearing, reporting, CCPs, trade repositories and non-financial counterparties, as well as risk mitigation techniques for uncleared trades. The advice is as follows: US – equivalent in all of the above Japan – equivalent for […]

Yesterday, the Macroeconomic Assessment Group on Derivatives (MAGD) issued its second report prophesying the (necessarily) macroeconomic effects of planned regulatory reforms. The MAGD was set up under the auspices of the ODCG and comprises financial and economic “modelling experts” from central banks and other authorities. The 79 page report came to the unsurprising conclusion that, […]

A quick reminder that the CFTC’s mandatory clearing requirement for interest rate swaps and credit default swaps when entered into by non-financial commercial end users (Category 3 Entities) will begin on 9 September 2013.  Many major businesses and most public companies are included within the definition of Category 3 Entities.  The Commission’s clearing requirement does […]

No, not really. But a hat tip to yesterday’s article in Risk, questioning energy companies’ (perhaps rash) assumption that they will be classified as NFC- under EMIR. The regulation designates an entity as NFC- only if its 30-day rolling average position fails to trigger any of five gross notional thresholds- crossing any of which will […]