Outgoing CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler delivered his farewell speech on 27th December 2013, calling himself “darn proud” of pretty much everyone associated with his time at the agency, including his daughters and their “Captain Grandpa”. While he gave a full summary of the agency’s achievements under his tenure, he only alluded briefly to the many […]

ISDA has published a survey assessing market fragmentation and liquidity dissipation consequent upon confusion and uncertainty surrounding the controversial Footnote 88. The footnote expands the scope of the SEF mandate to effectively include all electronically traded OTC derivatives, obliging even those platforms that do not trade “required products” to register and their clients to abide […]

On 20 December 2013, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approved a series of broad comparability determinations with respect to regulation regarding the central clearing of derivatives enacted in Australia, Canada, the EU, Hong Kong, Japan and Switzerland.  The favourable determinations means that non-US Swap Dealers (SDs) or non-US Major Swap Participants (MSPs) in these […]

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 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 […]

Four of the five regulatory agencies needed to enact the Volcker Rule are voting on the 10th December 2013. The SEC has said it will vote on or near the same date. The CFTC has scheduled a public meetingat 9.30 am EST to discuss proprietary trading and other business. In what is almost certain to […]

The CFTC yesterday released its inaugural weekly swaps report, an important step in fulfilling its mandate to bring transparency to derivatives markets. The report aggregates gross notional value and dollar and ticket volume in the: interest rate, currency, equity and commodity swap markets. Swaps will be further categorised by participant type and by cleared\uncleared status. […]

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, […]

Risk magazine is reporting that the Volcker rule, which will ban proprietary trading, could be pushed back as far as July 2015 due to delays in the rule-making process.  If so, this would represent a 12-month extension to a rule which is due to come into effect on 21 July 2014.