On 18 December 2018, the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) published:

• final draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/2251 on risk-mitigation techniques for over-the-counter (OTC) derivative contracts not cleared by a central counterparty (CCP) under Article 11(15) of the European Markets Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) in the context of simple, transparent and standardised (STS) securitisations under the Securitisation Regulation. The amendments these RTS make to Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/2251 seek to fulfil the amended mandate of Article 11(15) of EMIR, by extending the type of exemption currently associated with covered bonds (i.e. no exchange of initial margins and collection only of variation margins) to STS securitisations, under a set of conditions similar to the conditions required for covered bonds; and
• final report on amendments to the EMIR clearing obligation under the Securitisation Regulation. The final report covers the draft RTS that specify the criteria for establishing which arrangements under covered bonds or securitisations adequately mitigate counterparty risk with regards to the clearing obligation, and that amend the three Commission Delegated Regulations on the clearing obligation with regards to the covered bond provisions.