Letters to Regulators: AFR Ed Fund sent a letter opposing proposal to exempt foreign derivative clearing organizations from registration with the CFTC.
View or download a PDF version of the full letter.
Tag Archives: Derivatives
Letters to Regulators: AFR Education Fund letter to the SEC opposing cross-border rule proposal
On July 23, 2019, AFR Education Fund submitted a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) opposing a proposal that would create exemptions that would permit U.S. banks – and international banks active in the U.S. market – to do large-scale derivatives dealing in the U.S. without being designated as derivatives dealers under Dodd-Frank Act rules.
News Release: CFTC’s Derivatives Rule Opens A New Gap In Market Regulation
The requirement in the Dodd-Frank Act that major dealers in financial derivatives be regulated as such, and meet risk management and business conduct standards, is a direct response to derivatives market abuses that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis. The loophole created by today’s Final Rule could permit large-scale evasion of this requirement.
News Release: Throwing Out Derivatives Reform Strengthens Too-Big-To-Fail Oligopoly
We strongly disapprove of the new proposal to change rules for derivatives trading announced in today’s meeting of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The requirement that complex derivatives be traded whenever possible in open, competitive markets was a crucial element of Dodd-Frank derivatives market reforms.
AFR Report: The Same Old Song – Wall Street’s repeatedly discredited but endlessly repeated arguments against common-sense financial regulation
A look back at the financial lobby’s robotic opposition to one proposed reform after another, and how Wall Street’s claims have squared with real-world events. This new AFR report homes in on three pre-financial-crisis case studies, involving credit cards, mortgages, and derivatives.
Letter to Congress: Oppose HR 238 The Commodity End User Relief Act
“By freezing the CFTC’s funding at its current inadequate level for the next five years, this legislation exacerbates the agency’s most fundamental problem – a lack of resources to accomplish its mission. After the 2008 financial crisis, the CFTC became newly responsible for hundreds of trillions of dollars in previously unregulated swaps markets. …Even as it fails to address the pressing problem of funding, HR 238 would also load down the CFTC with additional mandates that would drain resources and act as a roadblock to necessary oversight and enforcement.
Letter to Regulators: AFR Comments to CFTC on Improving Cross-Border Regulations of Derivatives
We strongly support using Consolidated Foreign Subsidiary (FCS) status as the basis for cross border enforcement rather than the more amorphous and subjective “guaranteed subsidiary” status. …We strongly disagree with the Commission’s proposal to exclude a wide range of transactions involving foreign branches and affiliates of U.S. swap dealers from external business conduct requirements.
AFR Statement: AFR Calls on SEC to Resist Industry Calls to Weaken Fund Derivatives Limits
We are deeply concerned that the Investment Company Institute (ICI) Letter lays out a set of changes to the Proposed Rule which wold effectively negate the derivatives exposure limits in the rule and render them useless as a tool for controlling speculative leverage at registered funds, as is required by the 1940 Act. …This change would not simply modify the relative weighting of derivatives exposures, but would result in a massive increase in the absolute limit on derivatives risk exposure.
AFR Statement: CFTC Cuts Swaps Dealers Too Much Slack
“AFR is disappointed at the continuing extension of exemptions from swaps reporting for foreign dealers active in the U.S. markets. Some of the transactions to which this relief applies, such as transactions with supposedly non-guaranteed affiliates of U.S. banks, could be highly relevant to derivatives risks within the U.S. economy.”