EMIR Newsflash

This long awaited Decision is important to both EU and non-EU parties as, to date, any exchange-traded derivative contracts that are traded on any US (or other non-EU) exchange or market had to be treated as an “OTC derivative contract” for the purposes of EMIR. This anomaly has meant that any US (or other non-EU) exchange-traded derivative contracts had to be included in determining whether a particular party exceeds the EMIR clearing thresholds (ie whether it is, or would be, if it were established in the EU, an NFC+ or NFC–).

Following the entry into force of the Decision, exchange-traded derivative contracts traded on the named US exchanges/markets will no longer need to be counted towards the EMIR clearing thresholds, which may lead to certain parties no longer being NFC+ and therefore no longer being subject to the higher levels of requirement under EMIR such as clearing, margining for uncleared derivatives and daily valuation. Any representations or statements made by a party in respect of its classification under EMIR to its derivatives counterparties may also need to be revisited as a result.

The US exchanges/markets that have been deemed equivalent are:

• Cantor Futures Exchange, LP
• CBOE Futures Exchange, LLC
• Chicago Board of Trade (Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc)
• Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Inc 
• Commodity Exchange, Inc 
• ELX Futures, LP
• Eris Exchange, LLC
• ICE Futures US, Inc
• Minneapolis Grain Exchange, Inc
• New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc 
• Nodal Exchange, LLC 
• North American Derivatives Exchange, Inc
• OneChicago LLC 
• TrueEX LLC, and
• Nasdaq Futures, Inc