Capital Markets Advisors

As derivatives reform spreads out from Washington to places like Europe, some of the subtle, and not so subtle, differences in regulation are starting to make waves, if not tsunamis. One of the biggest areas of change is the clearing of derivatives contracts, and one of the most interesting, if not troubling, developments is EMIR’s rules allowing indirect clearing.

By any objective criteria, swaps trade reporting has had an inauspicious start. In the US, where it has been in effect for over a year, the CFTC, which oversees reporting and repositories, has recognized that it isn’t working very well.  Commissioner Scott O’Malia has spoken publicly about the reporting problems, and the Commission recently kicked off an initiative to revamp the whole US trade reporting process.

February 4th, 2014 In Europe’s answer to the US Volcker Rule, the European Commission recently published a consultation paper that proposes limits on proprietary trading. How do the two regulatory approaches compare? One of the most important parts of the Dodd-Frank Act (DFA) is Section 619, known as the Volcker Rule (VR). Although the rest of the G20 countries have been implementing parallel regulations to much of the DFA, especially… Read More »

April 24, 2012: “The FSOC will ask for how non-exchange traded securities are valued, which includes the pricing models and inputs as well as an audit trail proving the source of the data. Knowing that the data is accurate will also go a long way to proving that any risk metrics you have offered are valid before you come up with the remediation. Among the other likely types of data… Read More »

August 16th, 2013 With the recent passage of the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), banks are facing looming KYC process deadlines. By July 1st 2014, all financial institutions needs to have onboarding procedures for commercial and institutional clients that are FATCA-compliant. There are deadlines for existing clients that have also been extended to 2014 and 2015.

August 12th, 2013 On August 1st, new anti-money laundering (AML) measures were introduced under the Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act, and it would force US states to identify individuals behind corporations formed under state law. There has been great debate over whether or not these measures are necessary, but recently FINRA has fined Oppenheimer and Co. for unregistered penny stock sale and AML violations.

August 2nd, 2013 Tuesday, July 30th, SEC and CFTC officials testify on whether or not Dodd Frank Reform is moving too slowly in front of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affair Committee. Opinions have been fairly split on the pace of Dodd Frank reform; certain regulators want a stricter deadline while many firms have complained that they don’t have the ability to comply with regulations in the allotted time… Read More »

July 5th, 2013 We all know that the Dodd-Frank Act has imposed various restrictions on financial institutions since it’s passage in 2010. Today a myriad of bills have been created to fight back and impede the SEC from establishing regulations on said financial institutions. The most notable of these bills, the Retail Investor Protection Act, is from Congresswoman Ann Wagner; her bill would require the SEC to identify specific harm… Read More »

June 28th, 2013 With the recent regulatory reforms, deadlines encroach upon many buy-side firms – deadlines that could turn into extravagant costs. As we saw with the June 10th deadline, buy-side firms and “Category 2 Entities” were scrambling. May 15th was the absolute deadline for picking a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM), which then only gave buy-side firms one month to complete legal documents, open accounts and do testing before the… Read More »

November 5th, 2012 From September 9-11, CMA Partner Michael Hartig spoke at the International Securities Association for Institutional Trade Communication (“ISITC”) conference in Washington, DC making a presentation about “Preparing for New Regulation”.