Swap Transactions

Detroit, MI to Pay UBS and Bank America $85M Over Interest Swaps Settlement

Published on: March 4, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The city of Detroit has agreed to pay Bank of America Corp.’s (BAC) Merrill Lynch (MER) and UBS AG (UBSN) $85 million as part of a settlement to end interest-rate swaps, which taxpayers have had to pay over $200 million for in the last four years. Now, US Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes must decide whether to approve the deal.

The swaps involved are connected to pension obligation bonds that were issued in ’05 and ’06. They were supposed to protect the city from interest rates going up by making banks pay Detroit if the rates went above a certain level. Instead, the rates went down, and Detroit has owed payments each month.

Under the swaps deal, the city owed $288 million. The settlement reduces the amount by 70%, which should help, as Detroit had to file for protection last year over its $18 billion bankruptcy.

SIFMA, ISDA, and IIB Sue CFTC Over Alleged Unlawful Rulemaking Regarding Cross-Border Rules, Swap Regulations

Published on: December 4, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, Institute of International Bankers, and Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. are suing the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission over rules that they believe are hurting its members’ businesses, which includes among the biggest broker-dealers in the world. The plaintiffs contend that the agency engaged in unlawful rulemaking involving CFTC Interpretive Guidance and Policy Statements about Compliance With Certain Swap Regulations and other cross-border matters. They want the CTFC’s reach in its overseas rules curtailed.

ISDA, SIFMA, and IIB, whose members include swaps dealers such as Deutsche Bank AG (DB), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and many others, want to vacate a number of rules having to due with cross-border application completely. According to Bloomberg.com, at least half the largest banks work with overseas clients in their swaps business. The CFTC approved the overseas swaps guidelines this summer, and last month, two staff opinions came out shedding more light on the breadth of the guidelines.

Now, the plaintiffs are contending that with these rules the CFTC illegally circumvented the Administrative Procedure Act and Commodity Exchange Act by saying its regulations were “guidance,” did not set up cost-benefit analysis even though the law mandated it, performed a rulemaking process that was flawed, and set up rules that contradict international cooperation and could hurt global markets.

CFTC in Action: Agency Adopts Rules on SIDCOs, Reissues Relief for Contemporaneous Swaps Documentation Requirements, & Its Chair Gensler Praises Swaps Markets

Published on: November 30, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

CFTC Adopts Systemically Important Designated Clearing Organization Rules

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has adopted its final rules regarding systemically important designated clearing organizations. The new SIDCO rules line up CFTC regulations to with the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures set up by the International Organization of Securities Commissions and the Bank for International Settlements.

Per the rules, SIDCOs can remain Qualifying Central Counterparties (QCCPs) for international bank capital standard purposes. The rules come with substantive requirements having to do with financial resources, governance, system safeguards, special default rules and procedures for shortfalls or losses that are not covered, disclosure requirements, risk management, efficiency, and recovery and wind-down procedures. The rules also tackle the procedures through which derivatives clearing organizations besides SIDCOs can choose to become subject to additional standards so they can also be considered QCCPs.

SEC Proposes New Rule to Verify Swap Transactions

Published on: January 27, 2011 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Under Rule 15Fi-1, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed rule under the 1934 Securities Exchange Act, certain security-based swap participants and security-based swap dealers would provide counterparties with an electronic “trade acknowledgement” to acknowledge and verify specific security-based swap transactions. The SEC’s proposal comes under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act’s mandate that the commission set up standards for the documentation and confirmation of SBS transactions.

Per the proposal, an SBC entity would have to fulfill the following requirements:
• Depending on how the transaction is executed, give trade acknowledgement within 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or 24 hours of execution.

• Electronic processing of security-based transactions for SBS entities that have the capability.

• Written policies and procedures designed to get verification of the terms delineated in the trade acknowledgement.

The proposed rule would specify which SBC entity has to provide trade acknowledgement, let an SBS entity fulfill the requirements of the rule through the processing of the transaction through a registered clearing house, identify which details must be contained in the trade acknowledgement, and for SBS Entities that are also brokers, give limited exemption from the requirements of Rule 10b-10 under the Exchange Act.

Other recent SBS-related rules that the SEC has proposed under the Dodd-Frank Act deal with the mandatory clearing of security-based swap, the defining of security-based swap terms, security-based swap reporting and repositories, security-based swap fraud, and security-based swap conflicts.

Related Web Resources:
SEC Proposes Rule for the Timely Acknowledgment and Verification of Security-Based Swap Transactions, SEC.gov, January 14, 2011

Proposed Rule, SEC (PDF)