SEC Chairman Says Cross-Border Swaps Rules Top Agenda
January 22, 2013
The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said that proposing rules for cross-border swaps tops the agency’s agenda.
The 2010 Dodd-Frank overhaul of financial regulation required the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to draft rules to increase transparency in the swaps market. The SEC’s rules would address the overseas reach of the regulations governing security-based swaps. The agencies missed a July 2011 deadline to complete most of Dodd-Frank regulations.
SEC Chairman Elisse Walter, who became SEC chairman in December, said finishing rules would top her agenda at the commission.
“That is what is first on the agenda and really stands as the most important thing we have to do as a prelude to adopting anything else,” Walter told the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee today in Washington. “We will put that out for robust public comment.”
Walter declined to say when the commission would propose the rules. She also said she would prioritize rules required by the so-called JOBS Act, which sought to ease access to capital for startup firms and small businesses.
Until Dodd-Frank was enacted in 2010, swaps were largely unregulated, often uncleared and traded directly between banks and other consumers of derivatives. Dodd-Frank requires traders including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. to have most swaps cleared and traded on exchanges or swap- execution facilities.
