Just Don't Call it a Swap

The SEC is attempting to designate a central credit default swaps counterparty (for more on CDS counterparties see this post) for the small piece of the CDS market it can regulate (anything that isn't a swap, thank you very much Gramm-Leach-Bliley). Today it announced that it had exempted LCH.Clearnet Ltd and Liffe (the derivatives trading business of NYSE) from a whole bunch of requirements to allow them to immediately bring their CDS trading and clearing service (opened on 12/22 in Europe) here. Broker-dealers were granted an exemption to allow them to use the Liffe system.