Derivatives & Repo Report

A Buy-Side Guide to Regulatory and Transactional Issues Related To Derivatives and Repurchase Agreements

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By: Perkins Coie LLP

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Andrew P. Cross
Adrian P. Torres
Cindy Cho
Laurie Rosini
Perkins Coie
Sarah Todd (UK)
Shawn R. Durrani
Thomas Ahmadifar
Todd P. Zerega

Latest from Derivatives & Repo Report

On the heels of remarks by his U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) counterpart, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) Chairman Jay Clayton recently commented on ongoing benchmark reform and the transition to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (“SOFR”).  As we noted earlier this week, Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo of the CFTC recently advocated for the adoption of SOFR as the appropriate replacement for LIBOR and added that the CFTC is already working on…
On November 29, 2018, in remarks before the 2018 Financial Stability Conference in Washington, D.C., Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) supported the adoption of the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (“SOFR”) as the new benchmark for short-term unsecured interest rates.  SOFR is currently produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (“New York Fed”) and is based on transactions in the repurchase agreement transaction (“repo”) markets.  Chairman Giancarlo’s…
On November 6, 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) brought an enforcement action against a (formerly) registered investment adviser (“Adviser”), for failing to meet its diligence and compliance responsibilities under the Investment Advisers Act (“IAA”) relating to certain repurchase agreement (“repos”) facilities it offered to its clients. The Adviser offered nine repo facilities involving loans guaranteed by various government entities.  Under an agreement with First Farmers Financial (“FFF”), FFF purportedly pledged loans guaranteed…
On October 31st, the CFTC’s Office of the Chief Economist (the “OCE”) issued a report about “Phase 5” of the uncleared margin rules (“UMR”) that are slated to go into effect on September 1, 2020.  The purpose of the report was “to guide regulators in their responses to industry requests for relief” from the scheduled application of Phase 5. This post will provide an overview of the main conclusions of the report.  Any potential implementation…
This post builds upon an idea presented in Part 4 of current series of posts on considerations for investment funds and advisers related to cryptocurrency derivatives. In particular, this post provides additional perspectives on the relationship of leverage, margin, and financing to two commodity interests: “retail commodity transactions” and a “swaps”.  We decided to present these comments separate from the current multi-part series on cryptocurrency derivatives, since the topic may appeal to a broader audience…
This post is the fourth in a series that outlines key considerations for investment funds and their advisers regarding the application of the U.S. commodity laws to cryptocurrency derivatives.  This post is intended to be a primer on the topic and is not legal advice.  You should consult with your counsel regarding the application of the U.S. Commodity laws to your particular facts and circumstances. In this Part 4, we discuss the commodity interests that…
crypto up close
This post is the third in a series that outlines key considerations for investment funds and their advisers regarding the application of the U.S. commodity laws to cryptocurrency derivatives. This post is intended to be a primer on the topic and is not legal advice. You should consult with your counsel regarding the application of the U.S. commodity laws to your particular facts and circumstances. In Part 1, we focused on the status of…
This post is the second in a series that outlines key considerations for investment funds and their advisers regarding the application of the U.S. commodity laws to cryptocurrency derivatives. This posting is intended to be a primer on the topic and is not legal advice. You should consult with your counsel regarding the application of the U.S. commodity laws to your particular facts and circumstances. In Part 1, we focused on the status of…
In this multi-part posting, we outline key considerations for investment funds and their advisers regarding the application of the U.S commodity laws to cryptocurrency derivatives.  This posting is intended to be a primer on the topic and is not legal advice.  You should consult with your counsel regarding the application of the U.S. commodity laws to your particular facts and circumstances. First, a few words about our use of the word “cryptocurrency”… In this series…
For those of you who have been following along thus far, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets (“SEC Staff”) have been wrestling since December 2017 with whether to approve or disapprove exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”) that invest in bitcoin futures contracts.  On August 22, 2018, the SEC Staff decided to reject three proposals that included a total of nine bitcoin futures ETFs, possibly.  Just one day later,…