The OCC Issues Guidance on Transition Period for Compliance with the Pushout Rule

On Thursday, January 3, 2013, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the "OCC") provided guidance regarding requests for a transition period pursuant to Section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the "Dodd-Frank Act").  Set to become effective July 16, 2013, Section 716 prohibits the provision of Federal assistance (such as use of the discount window and FDIC insurance or guarantees) to any entity defined under that section to be a swaps entity with respect to any swap, security-based swap, or other activity of the swaps entity.

In the guidance, the OCC notifies insured federal depository institutions that are or may become swap dealers that the OCC is prepared to consider requests for a transition period pursuant to Section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Act, provided that such requests conform to the procedures and conditions established in the notice.

Read the OCC press release

The CFTC Issues Cross Boarder Swaps Order

On Monday, January 7, 2013, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the "CFTC") published in the Federal Register a final order that grants market participants temporary conditional relief from certain provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act (the "CEA"), as amended by Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act.  Under this final order, a non-U.S. person that registers as a swap dealer ("SD") or major swap participant ("MSP") may delay compliance with certain entity-level requirements of the CEA (and CFTC regulations promulgated thereunder), and non-U.S. SDs and MSPs and foreign branches of U.S. SDs and MSPs may delay compliance with certain transaction-level requirements of the CEA (and CFTC regulations promulgated thereunder), subject to certain conditions.

On July 12, 2012, when the CFTC proposed the now final order, it also proposed interpretive guidance and policy statement regarding the cross-border application of the swap provisions of the CEA as added by Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act.  In addition to the final order, the CFTC separately published for public comment proposed further guidance on certain specific aspects of the previously proposed guidance.