The European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has published a draft report on the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on over-the-counter ("OTC") derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories (otherwise known as European Markets Infrastructure Regulation or "EMIR"). The draft report: (i) limits the scope of the new rules to OTC derivatives; (ii) rejects arguments that certain sectors, such as the energy sector or pension funds, should be exempted from the scope of the EMIR; (iii) argues against a proposal to allow cooperation arrangements between clearing houses, known as “interoperability”, whereby traders would be allowed to choose where their trades are cleared, as such arrangements could cause a build-up of systemic risk The draft report accepts that applying clearing obligations retroactively, to existing contracts, would result in legal difficulties and create major problems for counterparties. It does provide, however, for this possibility with regard to reporting obligations and asks the European Securities and Markets Authority to assess how reporting retroactivity could be introduced if the information in question were essential to the supervisory authorities.