The Manitoba Securities Commission (MSC) has signed on to an agreement with U.S. derivatives regulators to facilitate cross-border oversight in the derivatives markets.
Earlier this year several Canadian regulators signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regarding cooperation, and the exchange of information, to enable the supervision and oversight of regulated firms that operate on a cross-border basis in both the U.S. and Canada. Now, the MSC has signed onto that agreement, too. (See CFTC, Canadian regulators enhance cross-border supervision, investmentexecutive.com, March 27, 2014.)
The MOU, which was signed Tuesday by CFTC chairman Tim Massad and Donald Murray, chairman of the MSC, covers markets and organized trading platforms, central counterparties, trade repositories, intermediaries, dealers, and other market participants.
All terms and provisions of the original MOU apply to the MSC as though it had signed the original, except in cases where the regulators want to use non-public information provided under the agreement for enforcement purposes. In the original agreement, when regulators do that, they must comply with the use and confidentiality provisions of the agreement governing global regulators (the IOSCO MOU).
However, when the CFTC and MSC share information, before using the information for enforcement, they must first obtain the consent of the regulator that provided the information. And, if consent is denied, they will consult to discuss the reasons for withholding approval; and the circumstances, if any, under which the information may be used.
The original MOU was signed by the Alberta Securities Commission (ASC), the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC), the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), and Quebec’s Autorite des marches financiers (AMF).