Welcome to the third in our weekly COVID-19 Regulatory update series. Another significant week for COVID-19 financial regulation- BCBS announced the deferral of Basel III implementation and on Friday evening issued a 1 year extension to the IM Phases 5 and 6 deadlines.

In order to manage the impact from COVID-19, regulators are announcing a number of measures and reliefs to help firms deal with the disruption caused by the virus. Last week, we did a preliminary post with some of the steps that regulatory bodies have taken with regards to wholesale financial regulation, and the table below […]

Risk magazine (subscription) reports an email statement from Patrick Pearson, head of the financial market infrastructure and derivatives unit at the EC, that there are no plans to delay Phases 5 and 6 of IM. “The amendments to the current regulatory technical standard on margins to implement the internationally agreed timeframe are currently in the […]

As the industry prepares to deal with the unprecedented and rapidly changing problems posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of regulators have taken action. ESMA The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has taken measures to relieve the reporting burden on counterparties that are subject to the Securities Finance Transactions Regulation (SFTR). The 13 […]

The CFTC is back with another proposal to refine the spirit of Dodd-Frank Regulations and amend real-time public reporting regulations. Chairman Tarbert opened his speech by stating that data is ‘the lifeblood of our markets’ and went on to essentially outline the CFTC’s new vision for how this this data should be delayed. Under Commodity […]

The latest IM deadline passed at the start of this month without fanfare, and larger firms were able to breathe their fourth sigh of relief. A year from now, the challenge will not be as “easy”. In Phase 4, approximately 35 firms fell in-scope of the €750 bn threshold. Updated numbers for Phase 5 show […]

Highlander 1986, “There can be only one!” or for a younger generation, “When you play the game of thrones, you win or die”. Risk magazine reports that MarginXchange (MX) has retired from the fray, leaving an open (if depleted) field for its erstwhile rival ISDACreate (IC). MX was established by the triumvirate of Allen & Overy, […]

In May 2019, ISDA launched two consultations: one addressing adjustments to fallback rates if IBORs are permanently discontinued, and another to address the pre-cessation of LIBOR and other IBORs. The operationally imminent cessation of LIBOR can hardly be classified as breaking news. The light shone by the 2008 financial crash fatally exposed the benchmark’s fragility, […]

Last July, ISDA decided to add French and Irish law to our library of Master Agreements in an attempt to prepare for potential Brexit complications. As mentioned in our earlier post, the objective of this is not to undermine English and New York law, but merely to offer an alternative so firms are awarded a […]