The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) announced that it will further streamline the process of novating or assigning credit derivative trades by way of its ‘Credit Consent Equals Confirmation’ project. As a key measure in this initiative, ISDA today published Additional Provisions for Consent to, and Confirmation of, Transfer by Novation of OTC Derivative Transactions. The overall objective of the project is to rationalize the current two-step practice of consent followed by confirmation, with an automated, single-step process for parties to provide their consent and their legal confirmation to a novation simultaneously.
“The credit derivative industry has made a series of improvements to the operational processing of novations over the past several years, including the landmark ISDA Novation Protocol,” said Robert Pickel, executive vice chairman, ISDA. “The result of the Consent Equals Confirmation initiative will be an enhanced automated process that will improve accuracy and facilitate same-day processing, thereby reducing risk and the necessary degree of resourcing. It is the culmination of collaborative industry efforts to further streamline transaction processing and advance operational standards.”
The Additional Provisions, which amend the rules in the ISDA Novation Protocol, allow these operational changes to take effect without requiring parties to re-adhere to the Novation Protocol.
In a series of commitments to international regulators, the industry undertook to significantly improve novations processing such that the action of consent for eligible trades would achieve a valid legal confirmation.
The Credit Consent Equals Confirmation process will go live on September 30, 2010. The Additional Provisions, Business Requirements and Best Practices document will be made available on the ISDA website, www.isda.org.
