ISDA

Subscribe to ISDA via RSS

On October 23, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) published two important documents that give swap market participants a convenient way to modify their swap agreements to account for the expected discontinuation of the London Inter-bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and other interbank offered rates (collectively, IBORs). The two documents are the IBOR Fallbacks Supplement to the 2006 ISDA Definitions (Supplement) and the 2020 IBOR Fallbacks Protocol (Protocol). The effective date for both the Supplement and the Protocol is January 25, 2021.
Continue Reading ISDA Publishes IBOR Fall Back Supplement and Related Protocol

On October 16, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) published a global transition roadmap, including a timetable of actions to be taken by financial and non-financial institutions exposed to the London Inter-bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) benchmarks, to ensure a seamless transaction away from LIBOR by the end of 2021 (the Roadmap).
Continue Reading FSB Publishes Global Transition Roadmap on LIBOR

On October 1, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a favorable business review letter to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) that clears the way for ISDA to complete its work on developing standard amendments to swap documents to account for the discontinuation of LIBOR and other interbank offered rates (collectively, IBORs).
Continue Reading ISDA Efforts to Help Markets Deal With LIBOR Replacement Clear DOJ Hurdle

On August 27, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) (together, the Joint Associations) wrote a letter (Letter) to the European Commission and the European Supervisory Authorities to express gratitude for the mitigation of the impact on both European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK) market participants, in anticipation of the UK’s departure from the EU.
Continue Reading ISDA and AFME Request for an Extension of Relief on Brexit-Related Novation

On June 9, at the request of the Futures Industry Association, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (DSIO) and Division of Market Oversight (DMO) announced that they have extended no-action relief that was set to expire on June 30. 
Continue Reading CFTC Extends No-Action Relief to Registrants In Response to COVID-19 Pandemic

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) has launched a new webpage containing information about interest rate benchmark reform and the transition away from the use of interbank offered rates (IBORs, including LIBOR) as floating rates in swap transactions. The page and subsequent materials are available to everyone, not just ISDA members.
Continue Reading ISDA Launches Benchmark Reform Information Source

On December 2, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Market Risk Advisory Committee (MRAC) announced that it will hold a public meeting at the CFTC headquarters in Washington, DC on December 11 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern. At the meeting, MRAC will receive status reports from its Climate-Related Market Risk, Central Counterparty Risk and Governance, Market …

On August 27, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) published a new protocol to give swap market participants an easy way to amend existing credit derivative documentation to incorporate changes that have been made to the ISDA Credit Derivatives Definitions and address the market concern about companies creating credit events for the benefit of particular credit derivative parties.
Continue Reading ISDA Publishes Narrowly Tailored Credit Event (NTCE) Protocol

On May 29, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) issued calculation guidance for swap market participants seeking to determine if they might become subject in 2020 to mandatory initial margin requirements for swaps executed with swap dealers registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Under both the CFTC margin rules and the margin rules adopted by the prudential regulators for bank swap dealers, any “financial end user” (as defined in the margin rules) that is not already subject to mandatory initial margin for trades with swap dealers will become so on September 1, 2020, if it has “material swaps exposure.” An entity will have “material swaps exposure” for 2020 if the entity and its margin affiliates have a daily average aggregate notional amount (DAANA) of uncleared swaps, uncleared security-based swaps, foreign exchange forwards and foreign exchange swaps with all counterparties for June, July and August of this year that exceeds $8 billion, where such amount is calculated only for business days.
Continue Reading ISDA Publishes Initial Margin Implementation Guidance for Financial End Users