To briefly recount where we stand in the USD LIBOR transition process, on March 5, 2021, LIBOR’s administrator, the ICE Benchmark Administration, and LIBOR’s regulator, the UK Financial Conduct Authority, announced that (1) 1-week and 2-month USD LIBOR would cease to be published after Dec. 31, 2021 and (2) 1-, 3-, 6- and 12-month USD LIBOR would cease to be published after June 30, 2023. U.S. bank regulators have encouraged U.S. banks to use the secured overnight funding rate (SOFR) published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as a replacement interest rate.

New York state passed legislation this past summer which addresses legacy USD LIBOR contracts that are governed by New York law and do not specify a non-USD LIBOR replacement interest rate or are silent as to a replacement interest rate. However, while New York law admittedly is the governing law of many financial contracts, the New York legislation does not provide a fix for legacy USD LIBOR contracts that are governed by the law of states other than New York law and Alabama (which has also adopted legacy USD LIBOR contract legislation).