As part of the reporting regime under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, all parties to swap agreements (Swap Participants), including municipal issuers, need to have Legal Entity Identifier numbers (also known as LEIs or CICIs) that are used when dealers report swaps. Note this requirement even applies with respect to certain swaps that already have been terminated to the extent they were in effect on or after April 25, 2011. Many swap dealers or other third parties already have gotten LEIs assigned to Swap Participants in order to fulfill their reporting obligations, without the participants’ action or knowledge.

The federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has recently reminded all Swap Participants that they need to include their LEIs with their other swap records. In addition, CFTC has now taken the position that all Swap Participants are required to apply for (to the extent that one has not already been assigned to them) or certify (to the extent that one has already been assigned to them by a dealer or third party) their LEI prior to April 10, 2013. Previously, it was not clear that a swap counterparty was obligated to certify LEIs applied for by dealers or third parties.

Additional Information

You can check to see if an LEI has already been assigned to your organization by searching the database. You can use that same website to both apply for an LEI or certify an existing LEI. For additional information on LEIs and Dodd-Frank compliance, please see our prior client alert by clicking here. If you have questions, feel free to call your regular Kutak Rock attorney or any of the attorneys on our swaps team, listed in the right-hand column.

To download a print-quality PDF of this client alert, please click the link below.