The High Court has summarily determined that a bank’s default notice of an event of default to an energy company, for failure to pay monies due under a foreign exchange (FX) swap, was valid under the terms of the 2002 ISDA Master Agreement governing the transaction: Macquarie Bank Limited v Phelan Energy Group Limited [2022] … Read more

The High Court has allowed a summary judgment application by an Italian bank seeking declarations to the effect that certain interest rate swaps entered into with an Italian municipal authority were valid, lawful and binding on the parties: Dexia Crediop SPA v Provincia Di Pesaro E Urbino [2022] EWHC 2410 (Comm). This is an interesting … Read more

The High Court has allowed an application for directions made by the administrators of an investment bank concerning the construction and effect of various standard form events of default provisions which were included in the 1992 and 2002 versions of the ISDA Master Agreements (multi-currency cross border versions) in relation to certain swaps entered into … Read more

The High Court has dismissed an Italian municipal authority’s application to strike out certain parts of the claimant banks’ particulars of claims and/or for a stay (in relation to a declaratory relief claim in connection with two interest rate swap transactions): Banca Intesa Sanpaolo SPA and Dexia Credip SPA v Commune Di Venezia [2020] EWHC … Read more

With LIBOR due to disappear by end-2021, work has been underway to facilitate the transition from LIBOR and other IBORs to alternative risk free rates (RFRs). The derivatives market has been at the forefront of the transition and is some distance further ahead than other financial markets. In particular, ISDA has recently published the 2020 … Read more

The Commercial Court has granted declaratory relief concerning a bank’s rights under an interest rate hedging arrangement governed by the 1992 ISDA Master Agreement: BNP Paribas SA v Trattamento Rifiuti Metropolitani SPA [2020] EWHC 2436 (Comm). This is the substantive English trial judgment in the long-running (and cross-jurisdictional) dispute between BNP Paribas S.A. (the Bank) … Read more

The Court of Appeal has upheld the High Court’s decision to grant summary judgment in favour of a bank defending a claim brought by a foreign exchange (FX) broker seeking to recover losses incurred on FX spot transactions during the 2015 “Swiss Flash Crash”: CFH Clearing Ltd v MLI [2020] EWCA Civ 1064. In doing … Read more

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) has announced the preliminary results of its re-consultation on the implementation of pre-cessation fallbacks for derivatives referenced to LIBOR (see press release). It follows an earlier consultation on pre-cessation fallbacks last year, which failed to achieve market consensus on whether or not (and if so, how) to include … Read more