As previewed by its own ECON committee, the European Parliament yesterday adopted the “final” draft of the long-awaited non-cleared margin rules under EMIR. The uncharacteristic fast-tracking has created the ironic situation in which market participants are now lobbying the Council to delay their adoption of the rules in order to avoid entry into application during […]

The EC has rushed to publish an addendum correcting the most glaring error in its 28 July RTS on non-cleared margin rules. The RTS stated that the first implementation of IM in the EU would be 1 September 2017, a full year after all other countries who are following the BCBS/IOSCO timetable. The addendum clarifies […]

On 28 July 2016 the EC published a letter to the Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs), stating that it will endorse a revised text [1] of the RTS on risk mitigation techniques for non-cleared OTC derivatives Article 11(15) of EMIR. The market has been on tenterhooks since 9 June 2016 when the Commission announced that it would […]

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 […]

Commissioners yesterday voted 2-to-1 to pass margin rules for uncleared swaps. The rules are broadly in line with those passed by the Prudential Regulators on 30 October 2015. Initial margin (IM) will be exchanged between covered swap entities (CSEs) and SDs, MSPs and financial end-users, subject to the $8bn gross notional exposure. IM may be […]

On 6 November 2014, ISDA released the 2014 “Standard” Credit Support Annex, available as always under English law or New York law. This new CSA is meant to coexist with the legacy 1994 CSA and the already out-of-fashion 2013 CSA published only a year ago. What was presented as a tour de force in the […]

The five leading US regulatory agencies, collectively referred to as the “prudential regulators”[1], met yesterday to finalise the US iteration of the Basel III Liquidity Coverage Ratio, to adopt a supplementary leverage ratio rule and to propose new margin requirements for uncleared swaps. Liquidity Coverage Ratio– a deleveraging rule to protect financial institutions from temporary […]

An interesting article from Risk magazine noting one of the inconsistencies thrown up by the EU’s interpretation of the rules on the margining of non-cleared derivatives trades, published on 14 April 2014 (see this blog post for more detail). The draft EU rules require “EU entities to collect margin…regardless of whether they are facing EU […]

Following entry into force of the final CFTC rules on initial margin segregation on 6 May 2014 (see this blog post for more detail), ISDA has published a “Form of CFTC 23.704 Quarterly Notice” on its website.  The notice is intended to assist market participants in implementing the reporting requirement under regulation 23.704 relating to […]