The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is now a U.S. federal statute and signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama.  Now that the law is in place, U.S. agencies such as the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Federal Reserve Board are drafting proposals under newly minted regulatory powers, especially in the area of swap margin requirements and classifying swap participants.  Counterparty risk cannot be understated and it furthered the slogan “too big to fail”.  The agencies are proposing to include sovereign funds as “financial end users” or “financial entities”.  If this proposal passes, this will increase their margin requirements, essentially mandating sovereign wealth funds to pledge their assets to back American financial institutions.   This brings further issues to light, since some sovereign funds may need legislative or committee action to enlarge the amount of pledged assets to meet margin calls.  There is also political risk that foreign governments might counteract by providing similar legislation against the U.S. government.

Under the proposal, they state:

“The Commission notes that these types of sovereign counterparties do not fit easily into the proposed rule’s categories of financial and nonfinancial entities. In comparing the characteristics of sovereign counterparties with those of financial and nonfinancial entities, the Commission preliminarily believes that the financial condition of a sovereign will tend to be closely linked with the financial condition of its domestic banking system, through common effects of the business cycle on both government finances and bank losses, as well as through the safety net that many sovereigns provide to banks.

Such a tight link with the health of its domestic banking system, and by extension with the broader global financial system, makes a sovereign counterparty similar to a financial entity both in the nature of the systemic risk and the risk to the safety and soundness of the covered swap entity. As a result, the Commission preliminarily believes that sovereign counterparties should be treated as financial entities for purposes of the proposed rule’s margin requirements.”

Source: U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission

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