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On December 3, the National Futures Association (NFA) proposed amendments to various NFA Compliance Rules and Interpretive Notices related to discretionary customer accounts, customer information, risk disclosures and bunched orders to apply to cleared swaps, in addition to other minor amendments. Most notably, NFA proposal would amend the following:…
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On November 1, the National Futures Association (NFA) issued Notice to Members I-19-22, announcing that NFA’s Swap Proficiency Requirements would launch and become accessible online on January 31, 2020 (Swap Proficiency Requirements). Each NFA Member with associated persons required to take the Swap Proficiency Requirements must designate at least one Swaps Proficiency Requirements Administrator who…

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced the creation of a new Subcommittee on Margin Requirements for Non-Cleared Swaps under the Global Markets Advisory Committee (GMAC). The subcommittee will be responsible for examining the implementation of margin requirements for non-cleared swaps and recommending actions to the CFTC to mitigate any related challenges.

Commissioner Dawn Stump, sponsor…

On October 16, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) unanimously extended the compliance schedule for initial margin requirements for uncleared swaps for entities with average aggregate notional amounts in material swaps exposure of $8 – $50 billion until September 1, 2021. Entities with more than $50 billion of such exposure are still subject to the…

On October 9, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposed regulations to eliminate tax issues that might otherwise arise due to the modification of instruments and transactions as a result of discontinuation of interbank offered rates (IBORs) used in debt instruments and non-debt contracts (such as derivatives). Under current rules, material alteration of the terms of instruments and contracts can result in tax events, including the realization of gain or loss for income tax purposes.
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On September 19, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted a package of new final rules and rule amendments dealing with recordkeeping and reporting requirements for security-based swap dealers (SBS dealers). In general, the SEC is requiring SBS dealers to create and maintain records with respect to security based-swaps in a manner consistent with current recordkeeping and record retention rules that apply to broker-dealers. The SEC is, however, providing alternate compliance mechanisms that will allow an SBS dealer that also is a swap dealer but is not a broker-dealer to comply with Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) rules instead and will allow a non-US SBS dealer to request permission to comply with its home country rules.…
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On September 17, the directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) approved a joint notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) with respect to the prudential regulator margin rules for non-cleared swaps. The joint form of the NPR indicates that the other prudential swap regulators (the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Farm Credit Administration and the Federal Housing Finance Agency) will all be approving the same NPR in the near future.…
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On September 13, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced the extension of the public comment periods for two rule proposals. First, the CFTC announced that it will extend the comment period from September 17 to November 18 for the proposed alternative compliance framework for derivatives clearing organizations (DCOs) organized outside of the United States that do not pose substantial risk to the US financial system (Alternative Compliance Framework Proposal). Under the Alternative Compliance Framework Proposal, these DCOs would be able to register with the CFTC, yet comply with the core principles applicable to DCOs in the Commodity Exchange Act through their compliance with the regulatory regime of their home country, subject to certain conditions and limitations.…
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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. …
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