AFR submitted a comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission supporting the Commission’s proposals to require foreign security-based swap dealers and participants to abide by the SEC’s own set of capital and initial margin requirements as opposed to the less stringent Basel capital requirements.
The Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund wrote a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission urging them to strengthen a proposed rule that would fatally weaken the implementation of Title VII of Dodd-Frank and its application to CFTC-regulated derivatives markets. In the letter, AFR Education
The AFR Education Fund wrote a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission supporting the agency’s proposal to require anonymous trading of cleared derivatives on Swaps Execution Facilities. Revealing the identity of trading partners can prevent new competitors from entering these markets and bidding down
We strongly oppose the proposal to remove requirements to post initial margin when engaging in inter-affiliate derivatives transactions with covered swaps entities. The Agencies instituted this requirement just four years ago, concluding that these margin postings were necessary to “protect the safety and soundness of the covered swap entity in the event of an affiliated counterparty default”. Since this issue affects the key depository affiliates of the largest U.S. banks – entities at the heart of the taxpayer-supported safety net for systemically critical banks – the 2015 Final Rule also concluded that failing to require initial margin for inter-affiliate swaps would pose a threat to broader systemic stability.
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.
The de minimis exemption is a critical element of the swap dealer rule, as it determines which swap dealers will actually be designated as regulated swap dealers and subject to formal dealer oversight. This CFTC proposal addresses a wide range of issues surrounding this exemption.