Excerpt:

“In just the past week, two important committees in the U.S. House of Representatives – the Financial Services Committee and the Agriculture Committee – took up this reform. The House Financial Services Committee passed historic legislation that, for the first time, introduces comprehensive regulation to the OTC derivatives marketplace. The House Agriculture Committee is marking up a similarly historic bill later today.
Both of the committees’ bills include three important elements of regulatory reform: First, they require swap dealers and major swap participants to register and come under comprehensive regulation. This includes capital standards, margin requirements, business conduct standards and recordkeeping and reporting requirements. Second, the bills require that dealers and major swap participants bring their clearable swaps into central clearinghouses. Third, they require dealers and major swap participants to use transparent trading venues for their clearable swaps.”