CFTC Chair J. Christopher Giancarlo reiterated his prior remarks on global swaps regulation (see previous coverage of his speech in Switzerland and op-ed in French newspaper Les Échos). In a speech before the Eurofi Financial Forum in Tallinn, Estonia, Mr. Giancarlo emphasized (i) the importance of global cooperation and cross-border deference between national financial regulators, and (ii) the expectation on the part of the CFTC that the European Union abide by prior agreements regarding cross-border regulation of central counterparties.
| Commentary / Bob
Zwirb One of the most encouraging parts of this speech is where Chair Giancarlo declares his intention "to have the CFTC make more explicit in our cross-border rules that the CFTC will defer to the rules of comparable foreign jurisdictions." It's also encouraging that in that same speech, Mr. Giancarlo refers favorably to the CFTC's Part 30 program for listed futures, which as he notes, "permits non-U.S. intermediaries to deal directly with U.S. persons on the basis of compliance with rules of their home jurisdictions." Had his two most recent predecessors followed such a sensible approach, much of the turmoil and conflict that global regulators and market participants experienced during the past few years in dealing with cross-border issues could have been avoided. Given that the Part 30 program for futures has worked so well for the past three decades, one wonders why swaps require their own set of standards with a separate definition of "U.S. person" for determining comparability when we already have a really good one sitting on the shelf. |
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