Rules for Pre-Reform Swaps Adopted

WASHINGTON (CN) - The Commodities Future Trading Commission has adopted new record keeping and reporting requirements for swaps entered into before enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, whose terms extended past the enactment date.

Swaps entered into after enactment of the act but before the CFTC adopted a compliance date for its swap data reporting rules also are covered under the new CFTC requirements.

The rules require that for all swaps entered into on or after April 25, 2011, participants must report the primary economic terms to a swap data repository. Those terms include the time and date the swap was executed, whether the swap is cleared, the pricing of the swap, the effective and end dates of the swap and any time stamps.

The parties to the swap also must retain for five years after its expiration all of the transaction data mentioned above as well as the identity of the counterparties.

Swaps begun before enactment or after enactment but before the compliance date will have to provide to a swap repository, either daily snap shots of the ongoing value or "life cycle events" that change a swap's primary economic terms.

Compliance dates for initial reporting on these historical swaps are staggered. Swap dealers and major participants must begin reporting their credit and interest rate swaps by either July 16, 2012 or 60 days after the CFTC publishes its final rules defining the terms "swaps," "swap dealers" and "major swap participants."

Reporting on equity swaps, forex swaps and other commodities swaps must be completed within 90 days of the reporting date for credit and interest rate swaps. Counterparties that are not dealers or major market participants have 90 days after that to comply with the new reporting requirements.

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