From the Back Cover
Derivatives law and market practice continue to change in historic ways since the Global Recession of 2008. Today there is no aspect of our financial system that evolves more dynamically than the derivatives market. Even though this market is arguably the largest and most powerful in the world, it is also the least understood. This is due to the arcane language that derivative practitioners frequently use, the complexity of these financial instruments, and the continuous evolution of the markets in which they trade. The need to understand derivatives has therefore never been greater. This text is designed to meet that need in an understandable way.
Since his work in Congressional hearings years ago involving derivatives traded by Enron Corp., author Gordon F. Peery developed a specialty in the legal aspects of futures and derivatives. As a leading thinker and counselor in derivatives reform, Peery reveals how derivatives law and market practice began to change in historic ways in 2011. Engaging and informative, The Post-Reform Guide to Derivatives and Futures:
- Explains what derivatives and futures are, who trades them, and how this trading will be transformed at the direction of the leaders of G20 countries
- Illustrates how high-profile failures over the years involving Long-Term Capital Management L.P., The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc., and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., compelled lawmakers to transform the OTC derivatives market into a market that resembles the futures market
- Provides an anatomy of a cleared derivative, illustrating each stage in its life cycle
- Dispels the myth that derivatives caused the 2008 market crises and explains how that myth played a role in reform
- Presents a panoramic historical survey of derivatives, from those used thousands of years ago to the present, and concludes with resources for monitoring today's rapidly evolving law and practice
The Post-Reform Guide to Derivatives and Futures is the first comprehensive treatment of OTC derivatives reform that includes historical and practical reference points. It will enable readers of all experience levels to understand the evolution of post-reform derivative markets.
GORDON F. PEERY has lectured in London, Hong Kong, Toronto, Brunei, Kuala Lumpur, and the United States on the 2008 market crises and derivatives reform. Since representing a leading investment bank in televised Enron hearings in Congress, Mr. Peery developed a global legal practice exclusively devoted to derivatives and futures clients. In his seventeenth year in large firm legal practice, Mr. Peery is a partner who counsels governments, sovereign wealth funds, international investment advisors, states, counties, global investment management clients, funds, managed accounts, real estate firms, energy companies, and individuals as a leader within the Derivatives and Structured Products Practice of K&L Gates LLP, one of the ten largest law firms in the world. Mr. Peery has actively contributed to International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) and the Futures Industry Association (FIA) working groups and has taught for ISDA. He has helped shape the next generation of derivatives and futures documentation and has authored or coauthored over thirty articles on derivatives and futures. He holds degrees from Vanderbilt Law School (JD, recipient of the endowed Bennett Douglas Bell Memorial Award) and the University of Southern California, where he graduated with a double-major, magna cum laude, as a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
