On May 19, ISDA and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) submitted a joint letter to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on SEC and CFTC harmonization, as part of the agencies’ Joint Harmonization Initiative which follows the previous announcements of efforts to harmonize the agencies’ regulatory frameworks.
The letter focuses on three priority areas:
- Alignment of SEC and CFTC transaction reporting rules;
- Elimination of the SEC’s arranged, negotiated , or executed trigger for applying security-based swaps rules to non-US transactions; and
- Adoption of an outcomes-based substituted-compliance framework across both agencies.
This letter also includes an appendix with specific asks and recommendations for CFTC-SEC harmonization.
Documents (1) for ISDA, SIFMA Letter on SEC-CFTC Harmonization
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