The unintended consequences of indemnification

I had the pleasure recently to speak at SunGard’s New York City Day and focused, in part, on a little known provision of Dodd-Frank, known as indemnification, which is gaining traction as a key issue in the broader debate for enhanced international regulatory harmonization. Swap data repositories (SDRs) are essential to bringing transparency to the market, and indemnification is intended to ensure the confidentiality and safety of data they hold and report—a laudable goal by any standards. But this provision may prove to be more complex – and potentially damaging – than envisioned.