Two years ago, I was standing in front of our Mayer Brown offices in Frankfurt, boiling in 38 degree heat, filming a trailer for Linkedin for our 5th Annual OTC Derivatives Seminar, which we had clients coming from across Germany, to attend.

Last June , with international lock-down well under way, we took our 6th Annual OTC Derivatives Seminar online, and hundreds of clients and friends across the world tuned in.

This year we remained online, throwing open our virtual doors again, with our 7th Annual OTC Derivatives Seminar, which started on Monday 21 June.

We split the Seminar across 4 days , with a 30 minute session each day.

We looked at developments in Initial Margin; the new 2021 ISDA Definitions; regulatory updates in ESG, Brexit, Benchmark Regulation and LIBOR Transition; and the latest documentation, updates and changes to the German Master Agreement.

I was delighted to see hundreds of registrations from the UK, Germany, France, Spain, the United States, South Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore and beyond. We also got some tremendous reach through our three Linkedin posts promoting the Conference: Linkedin Post #1 ; Linkedin Post #2 ; and Linkedin Post #3

Of course our team greatly missed catching up in person, as we took for granted in pre-Covid times, but being able to reach out to a broader audience is also very satisfying.

Last year, we thought that things would be back to normal by now. We still think the same now for next year, but I expect that "normal" will involve a mixture of live-streaming and live audience, with interaction from both audiences.

For those who were not able to attend, we are delighted to attach below the materials for the relevant sessions as well as links to the recordings, and we hope to see you either through live streaming or live audience next year:

Session 1

IM-Implementation for 2021 and 2022: Briefing and current implementation aspects

Monday, June 21
Speakers: Arshak Mkrtchyan, Edmund Parker

Session 2

ISDA 2021 Definitions: A look into the major changes in concept and content

Tuesday, June 22
Speakers: Chris Arnold, Edmund Parker, Patrick Scholl

Session 3

Regulatory Updates: ESG, Brexit, Benchmark Regulation, LIBOR transition and other aspects

Wednesday, June 23
Speakers: Chris Chapman, Marcel Hörauf, Edmund Parker, Patrick Scholl

Session 4

German Master Agreement: Roundup on latest documentation updates and changes

Thursday, June 24
Speakers: Ann-Kathrin Balster, Alexei Döhl, Patrick Scholl