A series of briefings that take a “bite-size” look at international trends in different jurisdictions, drawing on Baker McKenzie’s expert financial services practitioners.
On 29 July 2021, the US Alternative Reference Rates Committee (ARRC) announced that it formally recommended the forward Term SOFR published by CME Group, Inc. (CME) for use in connection with business loans.
This edition takes a bite-size look at the different rates of progress of environmental, social and governance (ESG) regulation and voluntary standards across the European Union, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.
As is well known, LIBOR will cease to be published on 31 December 2021 (for all currencies and tenors other than the most commonly used USD settings) and 30 June 2023 (for those remaining USD settings). Financial institutions must also work towards earlier LIBOR transition deadlines set for them by…
On 5 March 2021, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) formally announced the dates of the future cessation or loss of representativeness of all 35 LIBOR settings currently published by ICE Benchmark Administration Limited (IBA).
This announcement:
constitutes an index cessation event under the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) IBOR fallbacks supplement and the ISDA 2020 IBOR fallbacks protocol for all LIBOR settings
may trigger contractual requirements in certain LIBOR fallback provisions
fixes the spread adjustments in the ISDA Fallbacks Supplement and ISDA 2020 IBOR Fallbacks Protocol
In a set of coordinated statements, LIBOR’s administrator, LIBOR’s principal regulator and the principal US banking regulators announced plans that would extend the period during which panel USD LIBOR quotations would be made available until the end of June 2023. This would effectively provide a period for legacy USD LIBOR transactions to use LIBOR quotations for certain tenors after 2 January 2022 (when LIBOR is expected to cease for other currencies).
You are a corporate treasurer of a company with debt maturing now or over the next few years, and the company may need to increase its leverage during that period to finance new projects. You are considering the company’s options in the debt markets and recall hearing this incessant drone…