
Article 1 

1. For the purposes of Article 25(6) of Regulation (EU) No 648/2012, the legal and supervisory arrangements of the United States of America (USA) for derivatives clearing organisations consisting of Section 5b of the Commodity Exchange Act and Subparts A, B and C of Part 39 of the CFTC Regulations, with the exception of Regulation 39.35 and 39.39, shall be considered equivalent to the requirements of Title IV of Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 where the internal rules and procedures of derivatives clearing organisations which have been designated, by the authorities of the USA, as systemically important (‘systemically important derivatives clearing organisations’), and of derivatives clearing organisations which have opted to become subject to the rules contained in section Subpart C of Part 39 of the CFTC Regulations and are authorised and supervised by the CFTC (‘opt-in derivatives clearing organisations’), contain the elements referred to in paragraph 2 and 3.
2. The specific rules contained in the internal rules and procedures of systemically important derivatives clearing organisations and opt-in derivatives clearing organisations referred to in paragraph 1 shall, with respect to the principle set out in CFTC Regulation 39.13, include specific risk management measures ensuring that initial margins are calculated and collected on the basis of the following parameters:
(a) in the case of clearing members' proprietary positions in derivative contracts executed on regulated markets or designated contract markets pursuant to Section 5 of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), 7 USC 7, a liquidation period of two days calculated on a net basis;
(b) in the case of all derivative contracts, measures designed to limit procyclicality equivalent to at least one of the following:
((i)) measures applying a margin buffer at least equal to 25 % of the calculated margins which the central counterparty allows to be temporarily exhausted in periods where calculated margin requirements are rising significantly;
((ii)) measures assigning at least 25 % weight to stressed observations in the look-back period;
((iii)) measures ensuring that margin requirements are not lower than those that would be calculated using volatility estimated over a 10 year historical look-back period.
3. The specific rules contained in the internal rules and procedures of systemically important derivatives clearing organisations and opt-in derivatives clearing organisations referred to in paragraph 1 shall, with respect to the principle set out in CFTC Regulations 39.11 and 39.33, include specific measures in respect of financial resources ensuring that the systemically important derivatives clearing organisation or the opt-in derivatives clearing organisation maintains sufficient pre-funded available financial resources enabling that derivatives clearing organisation to withstand the default of at least the two clearing members to which it has the largest exposures under extreme but plausible market conditions taking account of additional risks to that derivatives clearing organisation arising from the simultaneous failure of entities in the group of defaulting clearing members.
Article 2 

1. Derivative contracts referred to in paragraph 2 of Article 1 shall not include agricultural commodity derivative contracts which fulfil all of the following conditions:
(a) they are based on an underlying agricultural product referencing grades, prices, weights, measures or conversion factors for agricultural commodities and their products as published by the United States Department Of Agriculture and traded on a US-designated contract market pursuant to Section 5 of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), 7 USC 7, or are based on an underlying agricultural product of sugar, soybean oil, soybean meal, cocoa, coffee, or lumber and traded on a US-designated contract market pursuant to Section 5 of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), 7 USC 7;
(b) they are based on an underlying agricultural product that forms the basis of an agricultural commodity derivative contract offered for clearing by a derivatives clearing organization established in the USA;
(c) where they specify one or more places of production of the underlying agricultural product, none of those places of production is inside the Union;
(d) they meet any of the following conditions:
((i)) they are physically settled and, except where they are based on an underlying agricultural product of coffee, all the places of delivery are outside the Union;
((ii)) they are cash settled and, except where they are based on an underlying agricultural product of coffee or sugar, the settlement amount is not based on prices for an underlying agricultural product for which at least one of the places of delivery is inside the Union.The condition laid down in point (b) of the first subparagraph shall be deemed not to be fulfilled for a given agricultural commodity derivative contract where the majority of such contracts cleared by the derivatives clearing organization established in the USA are cleared for counterparties established in the Union and those contracts are also offered for clearing by a central counterparty authorised in the Union.
2. Article 1(3) shall not apply to systemically important derivatives clearing organisations or opt-in derivatives clearing organisations which only clear the derivative contracts referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article.
Article 3 
This Decision shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.
Done at Brussels, 15 March 2016.
For the Commission
The President
Jean-Claude JUNCKER