On Tuesday 5 December, the European Commission adopted an equivalency decision recognising certain regulated trading platforms in the United States as equivalent to those of the EU, in line with the agreement reached with the American Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on 13 October of this year (see EUROPE 1153).
This decision, which was adopted in the form of an implementing act, will allow European counterparties to continue to carry out certain transactions in derivative products, such as interest rate swaps or credit default swaps, which are subjected to the trading requirements set in place by the new MiFID II and MiFIR framework, which will apply from 3 January 2018, on the regulated American trading platforms.
“It represents the third time in two years that the CFTC and the European Union have been able to work together to reach a positive equivalence decision - first in 2016 with respect to central clearinghouses, earlier this year with respect to margin requirements for uncleared swaps, and today with respect to trading venues”, said the chairman of the CFTC, J. Christopher Giancarlo, in a press release.
The European Commissioner for Financial Services, Valdis Dombrovskis, described the cooperation as an “excellent example of how a safe, yet global, trading environment can be ensured in a spirit of open cooperation”. A list of platforms recognised as equivalent is available at the following address: http://bit.ly/2jgCyyZ . (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)