Last week saw a wild ride for repo rates as the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR)—a broad measure of the overnight Treasury repo market—fluctuated between 1.95% and 5.25%. The week started with the SOFR rate moving higher to a range of 2.43-4.60% on Monday which was a significantly higher range from the prior Friday (2.16-2.40%). Then on Tuesday SOFR spiked to 5.25% with a print in the 99% percent of the range of trades at…

On Monday, June 24, 2019, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo, and U.K. Financial Conduct Authority Chief Executive Andrew Bailey issued a joint statement (“Joint Statement”) regarding collaboration to monitor the credit derivatives markets.  The Joint Statement states, in part, that: The continued pursuit of various opportunistic strategies in the credit derivatives markets, including but not limited to those that have been referred…

On May 23, 2019, the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (“OCIE”) of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued a Risk Alert to summarize frequent mistakes and effective practices by broker-dealers and investment advisers relating to the storage of clients’ data. In particular, OCIE warned that issues relating to cloud storage arose even when firms had cybersecurity measures for their data storage because firms did not utilize the available security features.…

On April 25, 2019, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) announced its approval of a proposed rule and request for comment (“Proposed Rule”) that, if finalized, would amend swap data repository (“SDR”) regulations. The Proposed Rule also proposes to amend existing SDR reporting requirements for market participants. In sum, if adopted, the Proposed Rule will require market participants who are subject to reporting obligations under Part 45 of the CFTC Rules (“reporting…

On May 3, 2019, the International Accounting Standards Board (“IASB”) proposed amendments (“Exposure Draft”) to two accounting standards in response to concerns raised by the transition away from the London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”). Specifically, the Exposure Draft addresses International Financial Reporting Standard (“IFRS”) 9 Financial Instruments and International Accounting Standard (“IAS”) 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement. The IASB is accepting comments on the Exposure Draft until June 17, 2019 and plans to issue…

In April 2019, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (“ISDA”) published the results of its latest survey of the margin amounts collected by market participants. The publication identifies key themes derived from a 2018 survey of firms that are subject to the Prudential Regulator or U.S. Commodity & Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) initial margin (“IM”) requirements. In this post, we summarize themes presented in the survey summary in the context of the margin requirements.…

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) has published the first in a series of guidelines for what it colloquially refers to as “smart derivatives contracts” (the Guidelines).* A smart derivatives contract is a derivative that incorporates software code to automate aspects of the derivative transaction and operates on a distributed ledger, such as a blockchain. This series of papers is intended to “provide high-level guidance on the legal documentation and framework that currently governs…