RSP principles win legal and banking market approval

Lawyers and bankers gave a thumbs up to the recently issued principles for retail structured products (RSPs) after two feedback meetings were held last month.

Both meetings, one of which was held at Clifford Chance's London office, discussed how the RSP principles could be further refined in order to improve the distribution of these investment products in global markets.

Earlier this year (10 July) The Lawyer reported that the Joint Trade Association Committee on Structured Products (JAC), a group of five industry bodies, including the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, released its set of guidelines for RSPs.

Timothy Hailes, JPMorgan's managing director and assistant general counsel and chairman of the JAC, said: "There's been a lot of feedback from the market. The specifics of how these might apply will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The meetings enabled us to bring together all the relevant feedback and to decide how we can move on from here."

Hailes added that members of the asset management industry have approached the JAC, interested in contributing to further advancing the guidelines. The JAC is now working towards creating a further draft and follow-up meeting to incorporate relevant amendments to the published guidelines.