On January 12, 2015, President Obama signed into law the Business Risk Mitigation and Price Stabilization Act of 2015, which amends the Commodity Exchange Act to exempt from the rules of prudential regulators for swap dealers and major swap participants with respect to initial and variation margin requirements for swaps not cleared by a registered derivatives clearing organization

(1) nonfinancial entities entering into swaps to hedge and mitigate com mercial risk (commercial end-users),

(2) affiliates acting on behalf of non-financial entities that use sw aps to hedge or mitigate the commercial risk of such entities or another affiliate that is not a financia l entity (exempt affiliates), and

(3) cooperatives that meet certain regulatory parameters (exempt cooperatives).

The law also amends the 1934 Act regarding registration and regulation of security-based swap dealers and major security-based swap participants, to exempt from initial and variation margin requirements for swaps not cleared by a registered derivatives clearing organization a security-based swap in which one of the counterparties qualifies for a specified exception from clearing requirements or satisfies certain criteria governing the treatment of affiliates.