On 11 July 2018, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a consultation paper on the clearing obligation under EMIR.

Currently there are three Commission Delegated Regulations on the clearing obligation that have entered into force, which mandate a range of interest rate and credit derivative classes to be cleared. These Commission Delegated Regulations contain a deferred date of application of the clearing obligation for intragroup transactions satisfying certain conditions and where one of the counterparties is in a third country, in the absence of the relevant equivalence decision. However, the deferred dates are approaching and there have not been any equivalence decisions to date with regards the clearing obligation.

The consultation paper provides explanations on draft regulatory technical standards amending the current Commission Delegated Regulations on the clearing obligation with respect to the deferred date of application for certain intragroup transactions with a third country group entity.

The deadline for comments on the consultation paper is 30 August 2018.