Congress should amend the Dodd-Frank Act to remove barriers to global regulators sharing data about the $708 trillion swaps market, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's head of international affairs said.

The 2010 law requires regulators from other nations to indemnify so-called swap-data repositories and U.S. regulators against litigation costs before accessing the data. The requirement may undermine regulators' access to data kept in repositories such as the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. as they seek to enforce new rules designed to reduce risk and increase transparency.

The requirement “interferes with access to essential information” because most foreign governments lack authority to provide indemnification, Ethiopis Tafara, the SEC's head of international affairs, said in testimony prepared for a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing today. “In removing the indemnification requirement, Congress would assist the SEC, as well as other U.S. regulators, in securing the access it needs to data held in global trade repositories,” he said.