The group focuses on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, including Bahrain, UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia as well as Pakistan in the wider Middle Eastern region. All jurisdictions in the GCC region need further improvements of their respective legal framework for derivatives transactions generally. The issues in question regard a wide range of topics from the areas of insolvency, property and contract law.

The ISDA MiFID Implementation and Advocacy Steering Group is the main ISDA discussion and decision forum in relation to MiFID 2/MIFIR implementation and interpretation.

The New Zealand Distribution List addresses topical issues of importance to ISDA members active in this jurisdiction, such as submissions on proposed new laws and regulations.

The purpose of the North America Accounting Working Group (NAAWG) is to create a forum for preparers of financial statements to meet and discuss technical accounting matters and practice issues under standards created or discussed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) along with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other relevant standard-setting and regulatory bodies such as the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). The NAAWG provides a forum for members to exchange and develop views on a wide range of derivatives topics including: netting and offsetting, cleared and non-cleared derivatives, IBOR reform, OIS discounting, hedge accounting, disclosure practices, fair value measurement, control and valuation matters.

Group looking at rescaling/rebasing events and material changes to indices and their impact on inflation swaps.

The objective of the Workstream is to produce a new version of the ISDA Interest Rate Definitions reflecting market developments including (i) changes to cash settlement mechanics for OET, MET and Swaptions, (ii) updates to the floating rate options and (iii) other miscellaneous improvements. The Workstream will also seek to leverage technological solutions for implementation and adoption of the updated definitions.

General distribution list for legal aspects relating to Interest Rates documentation and other legal issues.

The Interest Rates Steering Committee (IRSC) is one of ISDA’s Product Steering Groups comprised of both dealers and buy-side firms with representation from senior business leads at each institution. The IRSC is the governing body which meets to discuss issues affecting the business and practice of interest rate derivatives trading. This group is responsible for providing business leadership on the evolution of the asset class and ensuring appropriate levels of product standardisation are achieved; working with operational groups to coordinate the collective industry infrastructure initiatives to meet regulatory and business requirements and providing asset class expertise for ISDA’s advocacy agenda.

The Task Force focuses on the EMIR Intragroup transaction exemptions, specifically seeking to make them of more practical benefit, or at least, to extend the existing time-limited derogation from clearing of intragroup exemptions, which expires in December 2018.

The ISDA Islamic Finance Law Distribution List has been set up to discuss documentation as well as legal and regulatory issues affecting trading in OTC derivatives transactions with counterparties in Islamic jurisdictions.