On August 19, 2015, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission proposed amendments to existing regulations in order to provide further clarity to swap counterparties and registered entities concerning their reporting obligations for cleared swap transactions. In addition, the proposed amendments are intended to improve the efficiency of data collection and maintenance associated with the reporting of the swaps involved in a cleared swap transaction.
Among other things, the proposed rules are intended to provide clarity as to which counterparty to a swap is responsible for reporting creation and continuation data for certain swap transactions, including clarification as to whose obligation it is to report the extinguishment of a swap upon its acceptance by a derivatives clearing organization for clearing. The CFTC believes the proposed rules will reduce the probability of double-counting notional exposures and improve the capability to trace the history of a cleared swap transaction from execution between the original counterparties to clearing.
The proposed rule would modify Part 45 of the CFTC's regulations, which the CFTC adopted on December 20, 2011. The comment period ends 60 days after the publication in the Federal Register.
The press release is available at: http://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/pr7215-15.
The draft proposed rule is available at: http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/public/@newsroom/documents/file/federalregister081915.pdf.
The factsheet is available at: http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/public/@newsroom/documents/file/clearedswap_factsheet081915.pdf.
Original swap reporting final rule (December 2011): http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/public/@lrfederalregister/documents/file/2011-33199a.pdf.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.