The Commercial Court has dismissed a challenge to the exercise of options contained in five extendable interest rate swaps which incorporated the 2000 ISDA Definitions: Alfred Street Properties Ltd v National Asset Management Agency [2020] EWHC 397. The challenge was brought on the basis that notice was either not given by a contractually prescribed method … Read more
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (“ISDA”) announced yesterday that it will re-consult on how to implement pre-cessation fallbacks in derivatives contracts. This is an important development for financial institutions with large books of legacy LIBOR-linked products. The announcement follows an earlier consultation on pre-cessation fallbacks last year, which failed to achieve market consensus on … Read more
Over the past couple of weeks, the FCA has released two important communications in the context of the discontinuation of LIBOR, which is expected to cease after end-2021. On 19 November 2019, the FCA published a paper setting out a series of questions and answers for firms about conduct risk during LIBOR transition. Then on … Read more
The Commercial Court has granted summary judgment in favour of a bank defending a claim brought by a foreign exchange (“FX“) broker seeking to recover losses it suffered when the Swiss franc was de-pegged from the euro in 2015: CFH Clearing Limited v MLI [2019] EWHC 963 (Comm). The decision represents a robust approach by … Read more
The Court of Appeal’s judgment in BNP Paribas SA v Trattamento Rifiuti Metropolitani SPA provides further assurance that jurisdiction clauses within standard form ISDA documentation will not readily be displaced by contrary jurisdiction clauses in related contracts. The Court of Appeal gave effect to an English jurisdiction clause in an ISDA Master Agreement over an apparently competing … Read more
The Court of Appeal has upheld the High Court’s decision that ‘negative interest’ is not payable by a Transferor of cash collateral under the standard form ISDA 1995 Credit Support Annex (“CSA“): The State of the Netherlands v Deutsche Bank AG [2019] EWCA Civ 771. The Court of Appeal’s confirmation of this point is useful, because the … Read more
The High Court has provided important guidance on the application of the standard to which a determining party’s calculation of Loss under the 1992 ISDA Master Agreement will be held in Lehman Brothers Finance AG (in liquidation) v (1) Klaus Tschira Stiftung GmbH & Anor [2019] EWHC 379 (Ch). Upon an Event of Default under the 1992 … Read more
The question of whether ‘negative interest’ will be payable by a transferor of cash collateral in the context of a standard form ISDA 1995 Credit Support Annex (Bilateral Form – Transfer) (“CSA“) has been considered by the Commercial Court in The State of the Netherlands v Deutsche Bank AG [2018] EWHC 1935 (Comm). The court found that … Read more
Consistent with recent authority, the Court of Appeal has given primacy to an English jurisdiction clause in an ISDA Master Agreement (overturning the first instance decision that had declined to do so), in circumstances where there was a “theoretically competing” jurisdiction clause in a separate agreement governing the wider relationship: Deutsche Bank AG v Comune di … Read more
