ABSTRACT
Following the global financial crisis (GFC), regulators are committed to reduce the likelihood and severity of future crisis. In the area of financial derivatives, regulation is focused on increasing transparency, strengthening market infrastructure, and reducing systemic risk – these post-crisis regulatory reforms frame the research and discussion of this book. Our focus is the major transformation of regulation and supervision of the over-the-counter derivatives market (OTCDM) in the UK and the US, and the consequent move towards the regulation of Central Counterparties (CCPs) as new intermediaries of the market. This is a foundational discussion, revealing that the current UK and US regimes for CCPs are insufficient for a coherent risk-based approach, and highlighting, for the first time, the shortcomings of the UK and the US regimes of CCPs in the OTCDM. Our central hypothesis is that the design and implementation of a coherent risk-based regime would allow regulators to use the approach as the ‘route-map’ of the regulation and supervision of CCPs. To achieve coherence, a risk-based regime must integrate the perceptions and attitudes of regulators and firms related to the risks manufactured in the OTCDM, and also how they should be managed and controlled. We use a normative risk-based approach to regulation as a methodological lens to analyse the regime, and specifically focus on prudential supervision and the conduct of business rules governing CCPs in the OTCDM.
