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Dodd-Frank Timeline, Proposed Rules and Interpretive Guidance on Product Definitions
| Proposal Date
| Comment Deadline
| Final Rule Issue
|
| May 23, 2011
| July 22, 2011
| 2nd Qtr. 2012
|
At its April 27, 2011 open meeting, the CFTC approved a rule that adds additional guidance and clarity to prior proposals on swaps and security-based swaps definitions.[1] A summary of swap definitions, as proposed by a joint committee of SEC and CFTC staff members, can be found below.
Background
The Dodd-Frank Act divides regulatory authority over swaps between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
- The SEC has authority over “security-based swaps,” which are broadly defined as swaps based on (1) a single security or (2) a loan or (3) a narrow-based group or index of securities or (4) events relating to a single issuer or issuers of securities in a narrow-based security index.
- The CFTC, on the other hand, has primary regulatory authority over all other swaps.
- Meanwhile, the CFTC and SEC share authority over “mixed swaps,” which are security-based swaps that also have a commodity component.[2]
Swap Product Definitions
| Swap Category
| Products
|
| Not Swaps
| Insurance, provided that the beneficiary has an insurable interest, the contract is not traded in a secondary market, and the entity providing the contract qualifies as an "insurance company"
Consumer Transactions (for personal, family or household purposes such as real estate transactions, mortgages, and consumer loans)
Commercial Transactions (customary business arrangements and commercial transactions such as leases, service contracts, employment agreements, and commercial loans)
Loan Participations
Forward Contracts for Non-Financial Commodities,in a manner consistent with the CFTC’s historical interpretation of the existing forward exclusion with respect to futures contracts.
|
| Swaps -- CFTC Jurisdiction
| FX Swaps (except those exempted by Department of Treasury Proposed Determination, April 29, 2011)
Non-exempt FX products -- FX options, non-deliverable forwards, currency and cross-currency swaps
Forward Rate Agreements
Interest rates and other monetary rates (including interbank offered rates, money market rates, government target rates, general lending rates, rates from indexes, and other monetary rates)
|
| Security-based Swaps -- SEC Jurisdiction
| Yields, where “yield” is a proxy for the price or value of a debt security, loan or narrow-based security index (except in the case of certain government debt obligations).
Total Return Swaps on a single security, loan, or narrow-based security index
Instruments on security futures
|
| Mixed Swaps
| Where counterparties embed interest-rate optionality or a non-securities component into the TRS (e.g., the price of oil, a currency hedge)
Participants in a mixed swap transaction must petition the CFTC and SEC, in order to receive a joint order, unless one of the entities involved in the transaction is dually-registered.[3]
|
References
- ↑ Open Meeting on Thirteenth Series of Proposed Rules under the Dodd-Frank Act. CFTC. Retrieved on April 14, 2011.
- ↑ Definitions Contained in Title VII of Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Federal Register. Retrieved on March 18, 2011.
- ↑ Fact Sheet:Proposed Rules and Interpretive Guidance. CFTC. Retrieved on May 2, 2011.