Further to our recent blog post on synthetic LIBOR, the Financial Conduct Authority (the “FCA”) has published its feedback statement on its consultation regarding the legacy use of 1, 3 and 6 month sterling LIBOR from 1 January 2022. The feedback consisted of 36 responses from market participants, with the majority of respondents agreeing with all aspects of the FCA’s proposals. The FCA has confirmed that it will permit legacy use of synthetic Sterling LIBOR by supervised entities, aside from cleared derivatives.
The FCA confirmed that one, three and six-month synthetic Sterling LIBOR will be calculated as the sum of the applicable one, three or six-month Term SONIA Reference Rates provided by IBA and the fixed spread adjustment applicable as part of the ISDA IBOR fallback for one, three or six-month Sterling LIBOR, which is published for the purposes of the ISDA IBOR Fallbacks Supplement and Protocol. IBA will be required to continue publishing synthetic Sterling LIBOR for all applicable London business days, except London public holidays.
It is of note that some market participants queried the use of forward-looking term RFR as a component for synthetic LIBOR, suggesting the use of RFRs “in-arrears” instead in order to align with ISDA fallbacks. The FCA’s response to this suggestion was that RFRs “in-arrears” are not suitable for contracts which require the interest rate to be identified up-front, and as such contracts are not realistically able to be amended to work using RFRs “in-arrears”, the use of such rates in the calculation of synthetic LIBOR could have the potential to cause market disruption.
Duane Morris’ LIBOR Transition Team: Roger S. Chari, Chair, Joel N. Ephross, Amelia (Amy) H. Huskins, Phuong (Michelle) Ngo and Natalie A. Stewart.