Derivs - People and Markets

Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission has released a 17-page paper on draft regulations governing the sale of retail structured products by offshore institutions, and some of the proposals caught the market off-guard.

The court for the Southern District of New York is set to hear a dispute between Barclays Bank and Morgan Stanley Capital Services concerning payment rights from one of the first synthetic collateralized debt obligations issued.

Traders of over-the-counter derivatives and issuers of structured products need to have a firm-wide way of valuing and pricing those instruments to maintain transparency and bring confidence back to the market.

An update released today by the Bank for International Settlements’ Financial Stability Forum has called on international financial authorities to enforce minimum initial margins for over-the-counter derivatives.

Court hearings on the controversial knock-in knock-out fx contracts that incensed local corporate users are about to resume in Korea and bankers are pinning their hopes on a fresh panel of judges.

Calyon has appointed Swaroop Patel to head its debt and credit markets team for Asia ex-Japan

Several over-the-counter options referencing the net asset value of hedge funds are reportedly set to expire this year, but the liquidity crunch has meant unwinding the trades—mostly put on during 2006 and 2007 when the funds were performing—is proving a challenge.

Proposed changes from Fitch Ratings in how counterparty risk in structured finance deals is measured may lead to downgrades if issuers are unable to comply with the many changes.

Rabobank has made three senior appointments in its European structured products team in a bid to bring trading, structuring and engineering for all asset classes—equity, fixed income, hybrid, FX and credit—under one platform.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has finalized the members on its Credit Derivatives Determinations Committees.

Investec Asset Management is looking into how to play volatility on the euro/Romanian leu cross via its currency funds.

Lloyd Branch, a v.p. in fx sales at JPMorgan in Tokyo, has reportedly left the firm and is understood to be on gardening leave until mid-April.