SEC, ECB sign MOU concerning security-based swap entity oversight

Securities Swaps Of Interest to Non-US Persons MOUs EU Dodd-Frank

On August 16, the SEC and the European Central Bank (ECB) entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) intended to facilitate the consultation, cooperation, and exchange of information connected with the supervision, enforcement, oversight, and inspection of certain security-based swap dealers and major security-based swap entities in EU member states registered with the SEC and supervised by the ECB. These include SEC-registered security-based swap entities participating in the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), the EU’s system of banking supervision, which “is composed of the ECB and the relevant national competent authorities of participating EU Member States.” Among other things, the MOU will “support the SEC’s oversight of the operation of substituted compliance orders that the Commission has issued for security-based swap entities in France and Germany, as well as any future substituted compliance orders for such firms in other EU Member States that participate in the SSM,” to enable an entity to comply with certain Dodd-Frank Act requirements by complying with comparable EU and EU Member State laws. The MOU, which is intended to “foster cooperation” and exchange information between the authorities, states that at the date of execution, “no bank secrecy, blocking laws, or other regulations or legal barriers, should prevent an Authority from providing assistance to the other Authority pursuant to this MOU, or otherwise adversely affect or hinder the operation of this MOU.”