Please be notified that from 12th February 2014 The EU Regulation No 648/2012 (European Market Infrastructure Regulations or “EMIR”) imposes certain obligations on financial and non-financial counterparties (undertakings only, individuals are not subject to EMIR) established in the European Union entering into OTC derivative contracts. The OTC derivatives, as defined in EMIR, include all derivatives contracts which are not “executed on a regulated market”, such as options, currency forwards, swaps, margin forwards etc. The purpose of the Regulation is to bring transparency into OTC derivative contracts by imposing a clearing obligation through central counterparty and reporting obligations to trade repositories.
In essence, EMIR differentiates between the Financial counterparties (banks) and non-financial counterparties (clients) that fall above the clearing threshold (“NFC+”) and below the clearing threshold (“NFC-”). The obligations are then distributed in accordance with “status” of counterparty. For information on thresholds and other technical standards please visit: http://www.esma.europa.eu/system/files/2012-600_0.pdf.
EMIR imposes the following obligations on entities covered by EMIR: Clearing obligation through CCP (Article 10), Imposition of risk mitigation techniques (Article 11), Reporting obligation to trade repository (Article 9).
The Reporting obligation must be met no later than the working day following the conclusion, modification or termination of the contract. In order to comply with above obligations you might be required to obtain a Legal Entity Identifier code (“LEI”-code). For more information on LEI please visit: http://www.leiroc.org/about/index.htm.
To find out more information about possible obligations that EMIR might impose on entities and instruments as well as read more about EMIR please visit: http://www.esma.europa.eu/page/European-Market-Infrastructure-Regulation-EMIR
You may find the full text of a Regulation for your perusal at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:201:0001:0059:EN:PDF.
Please note that your entity's derivative contracts might fall within the scope of EMIR and it is your responsibility to comply with the Regulation. Although, there is right to delegate reporting obligation to another entity, delegation is not automatic.
Disclaimer:
In any event, this notice serves purely informative purposes and provides no legal advice. Please consult independent legal advisors on application of EMIR to your particular undertaking as additional obligations might be imposed.