EMIR Refit Enters Into Force On June 17, 2019 – Impacts And Action Items For End-Users

On May 28, 2019, final text was published in the Official Journal of the European Union ("OJEU") for substantive amendments to the European Market Infrastructure Regulation ("EMIR")¹ relating to the clearing obligation, the suspension of the clearing obligation, the reporting requirements, the risk-mitigation techniques for uncleared OTC derivatives contracts, the registration and supervision of trade repositories, and the requirements for trade repositories ("EMIR Refit").²  EMIR Refit becomes effective on June 17, 2019 (20 days after publication in the OJEU)³, and most of its provisions will begin applying on that date, while others will be phased in.

Many of the changes of EMIR Refit aim to reduce compliance costs for end-user counterparties that are non-financial counterparties ("NFCs") and smaller financial counterparties ("FCs").  Some of these changes include (i) an exemption from the reporting of intragroup transactions; (ii) an exemption for small FCs from