Introduction On 3 May 2016 The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) launched the “ISDA Resolution Stay Jurisdictional Modular Protocol” (the “JMP”).  The JMP is designed to enable market participants to comply with regulations in a number of jurisdictions which, broadly, require banks to obtain consent from their counterparties for the inclusion of statutory stays […]

Introduction On 14 April 2016 ISDA published the New York law “2016 Credit Support Annex for Variation Margin (VM)” (the “NY-law VM CSA”).  Subsequently, on 29 April 2016 it published the English law “2016 VM Credit Support Annex for Variation Margin (VM)” (the “English-law VM CSA” and together with the NY-law VM CSA, the “VM […]

ISDA has yesterday published its long-awaited 2016 Credit Support Annex for Variation Margin for use with New York law. The VM security-interest CSA is the first in a series of new market-standard documentation and will be joined by VM CSAs under English and Japanese law, IM CSAs and a protocol to assist amendment of legacy documents. […]

A consortium of trade bodies yesterday published a statement to assist with SFTR compliance. The Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME), FIA, the International Capital Market Association (ICMA), the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) and the International Securities Lending Association (ISLA) have jointly developed a template which market participants may use to […]

ISDA has published an updated EMIR classification letter. The letter amends the July 2015 version to align with the final draft RTS on CDS clearing and on IRS clearing in certain additional EEA currencies. The letter also amends the definition of “Category 1 entity” to accord with the final G-4 IRS RTS. Further amendments will […]

As part of a confidential settlement reached with NatWest and RBS, Crestsign vacated the appeal set to be heard in April 2016. Accordingly, the unsuccessful rendezvous with the Court of Appeal will leave open for now the difficult questions at the heart of this swap mis-selling case and also found in a number of similar […]

In yet another development driven by the remorseless exigencies of Regulatory Capital requirements, banks are looking to move currently clearing-exempted clients to cash-only CSAs. In order to bridge the pricing-gap between cash and non-cash collateralised swaps, banks are offering insurers and pension funds the option to post securities with an automatic switch to cash at […]

On 13 November the PRA published its policy statement and supervisory statement containing final rules requiring contractual stays in financial contracts governed by third country law (see this blog post for more detail).  The policy statement requires firms to amend “financial arrangements” entered into, or materially amended, after the relevant effective dates.[1] Whilst the PRA […]

On 12 November 2015, ISDA relaunched the ISDA 2014 Resolution Stay Protocol (now called the “ISDA 2015 Universal Resolution Stay Protocol”).  Twenty-one major banks have signed the 2015 protocol at launch. Both the 2014 protocol and the 2015 protocol seek to address the question of “too big to fail”.  Specifically, they look to tackle the […]