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Legal Commentary

: Economics of Contempt

House OTC Derivatives Bill Amendments

By Anonymous

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Markup of Barney Frank's OTC derivatives bill is now up. Manager's Amendment is here. Frank's exchange-trading amendment is here. Revised definition of "major swap participant" is here.

Frank really sandbagged the dealers with his exchange-trading amendment. The dealers support a central clearing requirement for standardized swaps, but not an exchange-trading requirement (with at least some justification). Frank's discussion draft had only required central clearing, and then he surprised everyone on Wednesday with his amendment requiring exchange-trading. It was a politically savvy move if Frank was planning to require exchange-trading all along?don't give the dealers time build up opposition to the amendment and it's much more likely to pass. My sense is that Frank simply changed his mind at the last minute, for whatever reason.

All eyes now turn to S. 1691. Senator Reed, the floor is yours....

(By the way, for all Rep. Alan Grayson's bluster, he introduced a total of zero amendments during markup. I guess he was too busy planning his next Youtube clip to do some actual legislating.)

Full post as published by Economics of Contempt on October 15, 2009 (boomark / email).