The European Commission on July 1 granted equivalence to 15 U.S.-based designated contract markets that operate under the oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
This equivalence decision is critical, as it effectively means that European companies will be able to continue trading on U.S. futures exchanges without having to worry about the potential for that activity triggering a clearing mandate for their OTC trades. In other words, products traded on equivalent third-country markets no longer fall under the OTC derivative definition under EMIR Article 2(7) and therefore do not need to be included within the calculation of the clearing threshold for the clearing obligation under EMIR.
The following designated contract markets were deemed equivalent to European regulated markets: Cantor Futures Exchange, CBOE Futures Exchange, Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Commodity Exchange, ELX Futures, Eris Exchange, ICE Futures U.S., Minneapolis Grain Exchange, Nasdaq Futures, New York Mercantile Exchange, Nodal Exchange, North American Derivatives Exchange, OneChicago and trueEX.
The European Commission moves forward on cross-border equivalence determinations.
