US, UK Regulators Hold Joint Exercise on Clearinghouse Resolution

Senior US and UK authorities came together for a joint tabletop exercise on central counterparty resolution, according to a readout published by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Sept. 3, 2026 session brought regulators from both sides of the Atlantic into a shared discussion of how clearinghouses would be wound down or restructured in a crisis.

Participants included officials from the SEC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Federal Reserve Board, alongside representatives of the Bank of England. The mix put US market, banking and derivatives supervisors in the same room as Britain's central bank, which oversees clearing in London.

Central counterparties stand between buyers and sellers in derivatives and securities trades, absorbing risk if one side defaults. Because the largest of these firms operate across borders and multiple regulators have a stake in their oversight, a resolution would require coordinated action rather than a single national process.

The readout did not lay out the scenario used or any conclusions reached. It nevertheless points to continued work by US and UK agencies on cross-border crisis management, an area where post-2008 reforms left open questions about how losses at a failing clearinghouse would be spread among jurisdictions.