Board/Other Public Meeting Dates
The Board meeting minutes are provided for the information and convenience of constituents who want to follow the Board’s deliberations. All of the conclusions reported are tentative and may be changed at future Board meetings. Decisions become final only after a formal written ballot to issue a final Statement, Interpretation, FSP, or Statement 133 Implementation Issue.
The following are links to the minutes for each meeting:
Background Information
Over the past few years, credit default swaps (CDS) have become the most dominant product of the credit derivatives market. According to the Bank for International Settlements, the estimated notional amount of outstanding CDS was $42.6 trillion in June 2007, up from $28.9 trillion in December 2006 and $13.9 trillion in December 2005.
The CDS market has recently become the focus of attention for both market participants and regulators because of the turmoil in credit markets during 2007 and 2008. Recently, some sellers of credit derivatives have been faced with severe adverse conditions such as actual and potential defaults on a large number of referenced obligations guaranteed by their CDS. As a result, the sellers may have large liabilities associated with those actual and potential defaults and may face actual or potential credit downgrades by one or more credit-rating agency. These credit downgrades could have significant adverse consequences on the buyers of these credit derivatives because the downgrades would affect the fair value of the purchased credit derivatives.
Concerns have been expressed as to whether the disclosure requirements in FASB Statement No. 133, Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities, adequately address the potential adverse effects of changes in credit risk on the financial position and performance of the sellers and buyers of credit derivatives. In view of these developments, the Board added a short-term project to its agenda to improve disclosures about credit derivatives.
