EMIR mandatory clearing – CDS clearing obligation launched

On 19 April 2016, the European Commission published the regulatory technical supplement (RTS) enacting the mandatory clearing obligation for credit derivative swap (CDS) contracts under EMIR in the Official Journal.

This follows the recent publication of the RTS for interest rate swaps (IRS). The CDS RTS will enter into force on 9 May 2016 and the CDS clearing obligation itself will take effect according to the categorisation of counterparties in a similar fashion to IRS. The RTS covers CDS that are dominated in Euro covering some European corporates - iTraxx Europe Main and iTraxx Europe Crossover.