By Christopher N. Alam

Chapter 17 of the draft United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (“USMCA”) has updated the terms of Chapter 14 (Financial Services) of NAFTA. While many of the revisions appear to address technical wording changes, there are some notable changes that have not received much media attention. This commentary will identify some of those.

Please note that Chapter 17 has been updated with several definitions and annexed provisions. To fully understand the terms of the Chapter, reference must be made to those, but, for the sake of brevity, those definitions are not repeated in this article. This article provides a general overview and reference to the details of the Chapter is necessary to fully understand the scope of the provisions and the multiple exceptions to the provisions that are included.