A collection of securities regulators are proposing amendments to their derivatives trade reporting rules that aim to establish public transparency requirements, and to harmonize with similar provisions proposed by other regulators.
Regulators in Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, PEI and the territories on Tuesday published proposed amendments to their derivatives trade reporting rules that aim to harmonize with amendments published last year by the regulators in Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba.
The comment period for the proposals issued Tuesday closes on April 17. Comments for the amendments proposed last year were due on Feb. 3. The British Columbia Securities Commission expects to publish its own version of the proposed amendments in the coming weeks.
The proposals would establish requirements for trade repositories to publicly release transaction-level data “in order to improve price discovery while preserving the anonymity of counterparties,” the regulators say in a statement. The proposals would also ease reporting requirements for certain derivatives between affiliated end-users, among other revisions.
The trade reporting rules are due to take effect on May 1 in the jurisdictions that proposed rule amendments today, with trade reporting obligations due to take effect on July 29, subject to ministerial approval and legislative amendments in certain jurisdictions. Currently, the reporting obligations for derivatives between affiliated entities and the requirements for the public dissemination of transaction-level data do not take effect until Jan. 1, 2017.
The regulators indicate that they intend to work together with the CSA Derivatives Committee to review the comments on both sets of proposed amendments in order to adopt “harmonized amendments in all CSA jurisdictions.” They also note that their staffs anticipate making a decision on whether to recommend adoption of the proposed amendments before those provisions take effect.