Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York ("New York Fed") Michael Held urged firms to prepare for the transition from LIBOR to an alternate interest rate. He cautioned that the transition from LIBOR has been identified by the Financial Stability Oversight Council as a financial stability risk. Mr. Held stated that "[t]he gross notional value of all financial products tied to U.S. dollar LIBOR is approximately $200 trillion - about 10 times U.S. GDP." He further reported that approximately 95 percent of LIBOR exposure is in derivatives contracts.
In remarks at the SIFMA Compliance and Legal Society luncheon, Mr. Held stated that market participants with LIBOR exposure must undertake two tasks: (i) begin using the Secured Overnight Financing Rate ("SOFR") or another robust alternative to LIBOR (or make sure that new contracts have workable fallback language) and (ii) deal with the "trillions of dollars of existing contracts that extend past 2021" which don't currently have a sufficient fallback. According to Mr. Held, understanding the scope of an institution's exposure to LIBOR-based products, and the contractual impact on those products when LIBOR is no longer available, is an important risk management assessment that should be completed as soon as possible.
Commentary / Lary Stromfeld
Cadwalader launched a LIBOR Preparedness Team" to assist firms with the transition to alternative rates.
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