Derivs - Regulation

CME Group is planning to start a pre-launch program for its credit default swaps clearing platform by Dec. 15, a self-imposed deadline the firm set itself earlier this year.

The U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee appeared interested in creating a broad exemption for corporate end-users from new over-the-counter derivatives regulations at a hearing today, with many senators questioning whether all contracts need to be cleared.

In congressional testimony today, Pete Axilrod, managing director at the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., voiced his support for the concept of real-time public reports on OTC derivatives.

A proposed U.S. tax on financial transactions could have a major impact on over-the-counter derivatives involving physical delivery, because the derivative could be taxed in addition to the tax on the transfer of the underlying at settlement.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association is preparing to lobby the Malaysian government to re-word its stamp duty laws to prevent derivatives users being slapped with hefty tax bills.

Barclays Capital and Standard Chartered are working toward signing the new interbank master agreement with China’s big four banks.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has finalized its post-trade governance model, detailing where decision-making among buy- and sellsiders lies for issues pertaining to each asset class and who is responsible for liaising with regulators on different matters.

Investors who were paid out four cents on every dollar of short-dated credit default swaps when French media company Thomson had a restructuring credit event auction last month could have been better served by holding on.

Legal arguments in the first potential credit event to require expert testimony from outside the International Swaps and Derivatives Association were filed shortly before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.

Delays in approving a Taiwanese master agreement between offshore structured products issuers, their onshore agents and distributors have brought the market to a virtual standstill, practitioners say.

China’s foreign exchange regulator has ordered all qualified foreign institutional investors to submit details of any structures referencing China A-shares that have been sold to non-licensed foreign customers.

A corporate governance review into British and foreign banks released today by the U.K. Treasury will not recommend that banks disclose the names of traders who earn over GBP1 million (USD1.6 million)—despite a recommendation otherwise by City minister Paul Myners.