On May 22, 2015, ESMA published its opinion on the impact of EMIR on requirements under the Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities Directive for OTC derivative transactions that are centrally cleared. ESMA recommends that the provisions on the counterparty risk limits for OTC derivatives in the UCITS Directive should be amended to take into account the clearing obligation of certain OTC derivatives under EMIR. ESMA's opinion is that the UCITS Directive should not differentiate between OTC derivatives and exchange traded derivatives. The distinction should rather be between cleared and uncleared derivative transactions which would allow a UCITS to treat ETDs and cleared derivatives transactions with similar counterparty risk characteristics in the same way.
ESMA's opinion is available at: http://www.esma.europa.eu/news/Press-Release-ESMA-calls-modification-UCITS-Directive?t=326&o=home.
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