CCP Rule Book Changes on Settled-to-Market Model/Impact on Hedge Acctg

On January 4, 2017, ISDA’s Accounting Committee issued a confirmation letter to the Staff of Office of the Chief Accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) related to an ISDA whitepaper on the accounting Impact of central counterparty rule book changes. The SEC staff confirmed all the conclusions of the ISDA Accounting Committee outlined in the whitepaper and follow-up submission – namely i) that the changes to the rule books of LCH and CME, as supported by legal opinions from external counsel, should result in the presentation of variation margin amounts as settlement of the derivative exposure and not collateral against it for purposes of applying the accounting and presentation guidance in ASC 815 (US GAAP covering derivatives and hedging); and ii) that the de-designation and re-designation of existing hedging relationships under ASC 815 would not be required solely because of these changes to the respective CME and LCH rule books. ISDA recognizes the significance of the continued application of hedge accounting when the hedging derivative has been affected by these rule changes and its importance to clearing members and end users.

Response on Scope of BMR

On July 28, ISDA and the Global Foreign Exchange Division of the Global Financial Markets Association responded to the European Commission’s (EC) consultation on the need to exempt spot foreign exchange (FX) benchmarks under Article 18a of the EU Benchmarks...

Strengthening DC Governance

The Credit Derivatives Determinations Committees (DCs) play a vital role. Without a single, industry-wide determination on whether a credit event has occurred, it simply wouldn’t be possible to clear credit default swaps (CDS), making the market less safe and less...

ISDA CSA Significant Errors Notification SOP

The ISDA CSA Notification of Significant Error or Omissions Suggested Operational Practices (SOP) considers current institutional processes and outlines suggested operational practices related to the new requirement under §26.3(2) of the Canadian Trade Repositories and Derivatives Data Reporting rules rewrite...

ISDA Paper on UPI Identifiers

On July 16, ISDA submitted a paper (UPI as the Foundation for OTC Derivatives Reporting: The Case for UPI) to the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The paper was developed to complement ISDA’s response to the FCA’s discussion paper DP24/2:...