Following the announcement by the European Commission on June 4, 2015, that the transitional period for regulatory capital requirements for EU banks' exposures to CCPs under the EU Capital Requirements Regulation would be extended from June 15, 2015 to December 15, 2015, the Implementing Regulation was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on June 9, 2015. The Implementing Regulation comes into effect on June 12, 2015. The extension is intended to allow further time for CCPs, both from the EU and from non-EU jurisdictions, to become authorized or recognized under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation. One of the requirements for recognition of a third country CCP is that the third country's regime for supervision of CCPs is deemed to be equivalent to that of the regime under EMIR. Equivalence decisions for CCP regimes have only been given for Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Japan. Decisions for major jurisdictions, such as the US, are still outstanding. Authorization or recognition under EMIR will give the CCP the status of being a Qualifying CCP, which is relevant for clearing member firms to calculate their capital requirements for exposures to CCPs under the CRR. Lower capital requirements will be imposed for exposures to a QCCP than for exposures to a non-QCCP CCP.
The Implementing Regulation is available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalc-ontent/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:JOL_2015_143_R_0003&from=EN.
You may like to see our client note on third country equivalence under EMIR, available at: http://www.shearman.com/~/media/Files/NewsInsights/Publications/2015/05/Update-On-Third-Country-Equivalence-Under-EMIR-FIA-052815.pdf .
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