INTERNATIONAL: New Benchmarks Published by ISDA

Thursday September 20 2018

The International Swap and Derivatives Association (ISDA) has recently published the ISDA Benchmarks Supplement, which gives firms the ability to improve the contractual robustness of derivatives that reference interest rate, FX, equity and commodities benchmarks.

The ISDA Benchmarks Supplement has been developed in response to the European Union (EU) Benchmarks Regulation (BMR), which regulates the use of a wide variety of benchmarks across different asset classes.  By incorporating the ISDA Benchmarks Supplement into the terms of their interest rate, FX, equity and commodity derivatives, market participants will be able to ensure these events are taken into account in their contracts and specify the fallback arrangements that would apply.

Use of the ISDA Benchmarks Supplement is voluntary and may be agreed bilaterally or via a protocol, which ISDA intends to publish in future. It has been generically drafted so it can be used in relevant derivatives transactions regardless of whether they are in-scope of the EU BMR. The ISDA Benchmarks Supplement was developed by an ISDA working group that includes dealers, asset managers, institutional investors, funds and end users

The ISDA Benchmarks Supplement is available on the Books section of the ISDA website. An FAQ is also available.

For further Information please click on the link above.