On April 29, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Chris Giancarlo sent a letter to Randy Quarles, the Vice Chair for Supervision of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, in which he proposed that the US regulators responsible for the administering the margin rules for uncleared swaps should collaborate in providing some relief… Continue Reading
On March 28, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced that it has unanimously approved two final rule amendments designed to ease registrants’ regulatory burdens. Both final rule proposals originated from the CFTC’s Project KISS Initiative, which is intended to simplify and reduce burdens by revisiting our rules based on staff implementation experience and public comment.… Continue Reading
On November 19, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved a final rule to amend its margin requirements for uncleared swaps for swap dealers and major swap participants for which there is no prudential regulator (CFTC Margin Rule). As a part of the Project KISS initiative, the amendments were designed to harmonize the CFTC Margin Rule… Continue Reading
On May 17, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission released a proposed rule to amend the CFTC’s margin requirements for uncleared swaps for swap dealers and major swap participants. The proposed rule amendments are intended to make the same changes to the CFTC margin requirements that federal banking regulators recently proposed for the margin rules for… Continue Reading
On February 5, the Prudential Regulators—the five federal banking regulators for swap dealers that are banks—proposed technical amendments to their margin rules for uncleared swaps. The amendments aim to harmonize the definition of Eligible Master Netting Agreement (EMNA) in the margin rules with recent changes made to the definition of “Qualifying Master Netting Agreement” (QMNA)… Continue Reading
On October 13, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the European Commission (EC) made three announcements that are significant for cross-border swap activity between the United States and Europe. CFTC Margin Rule Comparability Determination. The CFTC has made a determination that the margin rules for uncleared swaps that apply in the European Union are comparable to… Continue Reading
On April 18, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (DSIO) issued No-Action Letter 17-22, which extends relief previously granted under CFTC No-Action Letter 17-05. CFTC No-Action Letter 17-05 allowed certain swap dealers to substitute compliance with the non-centrally cleared OTC derivative margin requirements applicable in the European Union (the… Continue Reading
Lacking the ability to issue formal no-action relief from strict compliance with the variation margin rules for uncleared swaps coming into effect on March 1, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Office of Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the European Supervisory Authorities (ESA) have each issued statements suggesting that they… Continue Reading
As part of a global regulatory initiative, the United States, European Union, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia have all adopted, or are in the process of adopting, rules (Margin Rules) that impose mandatory variation margin requirements on non-cleared swaps and, in some cases, non-cleared security-based swaps and FX derivatives (collectively, “Covered Trades”).… Continue Reading
On September 8, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved a comparability determination permitting substituted compliance with certain Japanese margin requirements for uncleared swaps. As discussed in the Corporate and Financial Weekly Digest edition for May 27, the CFTC permits certain non-US swap dealers and major swap participants to comply with the margin rules of another… Continue Reading
