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[[Party A and Party B - ISDA Provision|In this episode]] of the JC’s series of unfeasibly deep explorations of superficially odd things in the [[ISDA]] metaverse, consider the bilateral nature of the {{isdama}} and its curious designators: “{{isdaprov|Party A}}” and “{{isdaprov|Party B}}”, and that curious descriptor of both of them: “[[counterparty]]”.  
{{quote|{{D|Bilateral|/ˌbaɪˈlætᵊrᵊl/|adj}}Having, or relating to, two sides; affecting both sides equally.}}


These set the ISDA apart; give it a sort of otherworldly aloofness; a sense almost of social justice. Other banking and broking transactions use labels which help you orient who, in the [[power structure]], is who: a loan has a “Lender” (always the bank) and “Borrower” always the punter. A brokerage has “Broker” (master) and “Customer” (servant).  
{{drop|[[The bilaterality, or not, of the ISDA|I]]|n this episode}} [[JC]] considers the “bilateral” nature of the {{isdama}}, why swap participants alone amongst financial players are called “[[counterparty|counterparties]]”, and what this confusing “{{isdaprov|Party A}}” and “{{isdaprov|Party B}}” business is all about.  


But not the {{isdama}}. From the outside its framers — the [[First Men]] — opted for the more gnomic, interchangeable “{{isdaprov|Party A}}” and “{{isdaprov|Party B}}”.
The unpresumptuous way it labels the parties to a Transaction sets the ISDA apart from its fellow [[finance contract]]s. They give it a sort of otherworldly aloofness; a sense of utopian equality. Other [[finance contract]]s label their participants to make it clear who, in the [[power structure]], is who: a [[loan]] has a “[[Lender]]” — the [[bank]]; always the master — and a “[[Borrower]]” — the punter; always the servant. A brokerage agreement has a “[[Broker]]” (master) and a “[[Customer]]” (servant).  


Why? Well, we learn it from our first encounter of an ISDA Schedule. ''[[The bilaterality, or not, of the ISDA|Bilaterality]]''.
Okay, I know ''theoretically'' the master/servant dynamic is meant to be the other way around — the customer is king and everything — but come on: when it comes to finance it isn’t, is it? We are ''users'', all hooked up to the great battery grid, for the pleasure of our banking overlords and the [[The domestication of law|pan-dimensional mice]] who control them.
 
But not when it comes to the {{isdama}}. From the outset, the [[First Men]] who framed it opted for the more gnomic, interchangeable and ''equal'' labels “{{isdaprov|Party A}}” and “{{isdaprov|Party B}}”.
 
Why? Well, we learn it from our supervising associate, when we first encounter a [[Schedule - ISDA Provision|Schedule]].  
 
''[[The bilaterality, or not, of the ISDA|Bilaterality]]''.


===Bilaterality===
===Bilaterality===
A belief in even-handedness gripped the ones whose [[deep magic]] forged the runes from which the [[First Swap]] was born.  
{{drop|A|belief in}} even-handedness gripped the ones whose [[deep magic]] forged the runes of that ancient [[First Swap]]. It has not just a two-sided structure — most private contractual arrangements have that — but a ''symmetrical'' one, lacking the dominance and subservience that traditional finance contracts imply.
 
In the ISDA there is not — ''necessarily'' — a large “have” indulging a small “have-not” with favours of loaned money, for which it extracts excruciating [[covenant]]s, gives not a jot in return, and enjoys a preferred place amongst the [[customer]]’s many scrapping creditors.
 
[[Swaps]], as the [[First Men]] saw them, would not be like that. Not ''necessarily''.
 
“A swap shall be an exchange among peers: an equal-opportunity, righteous sort of thing under whose auspices, one is neither lender nor borrower, but simply an honest rival for the favour of Lady Fortune, however capricious may she be. Those who ''swap'' things are not master and servant, but ''rivals''.
 
“Let us call them ''Counterparties''.”
 
This foundation myth imagines “swaps” in a pure, innocent, trading-bubble-gum-cards-in-the-playground way.
 
“I have two Emerson Fittipaldis, you have two Mario Andrettis, we can increase each other’s net happiness and thereby the world’s by swapping so we both have one of each.”
 
In the playground there are no brokers or dealers of bubble gum cards to intermediate, make markets and provide liquidity, let alone a trusted central clearer. It is a peer-to-peer, decentralised marketplace.<ref>Oh, wait. Hang on. There ''was''. It was Peason Minor in 3B. That made a two-way market in foopballers, F1 drivers and Top Trumps military planes and supercars. That guy was incredible. Wonder what he’s doing now. [''CIO at GSAM — Ed.''] Okay so most metaphors don’t bear close examination.</ref>


For most finance contracts imply some sort of dominance and subservience: a large institutional “have” indulging a small commercial “have-not” with debt finance for the privilege of which the larger “have” extracts excruciating covenants and enjoys a preferred place in the queue for repayment among the have-not’s many scrapping creditors.
And, to be sure, swaps ''are'' different from [[loan]]s and brokerage arrangements. They start “at market”, where all is square. Either party may be long or short, fixed or floating: at the moment the trade is struck, the world infused with glorious possibility.  


But [[swaps]], as the [[First Men]] saw them, are not like that.  
One fellow’s fortunes may rise or fall relative to the other’s and, as a result, she may ''owe'' (in the vernacular, be “[[out-of-the-money]]”) or ''be owed'' (“[[in-the-money]]”) at different times as the transaction wends its way to maturity.  


“A swap contract,” they intoned, “is an exchange among peers. It is an equal-opportunity sort of thing; Biblically righteous in that, under its awnings, one be neither lender nor borrower, but an honest rival for the favour of the Lady Fortune, however capricious may she be.  
Covenants, collateral, credit support and so on may, thereby, flow either way. They may flow ''both'' ways. In our time of [[regulatory margin]], they usually do.


“We are equals. Rivals. ''Counterparties''”. Covenants, privileges of credit support and so on may flow either way. They may flow ''both'' ways. In our time of [[regulatory margin]], they usually do.
And swaps, too, are the preserve of professional investors, who know what they are doing. Usually, they know it better than the bank employees they face, having once themselves ''been'' bank employees. Mums and dads, [[Belgian dentist]]s and the like may take loans, buy bonds, have a flutter on the share market and even trade cryptocurrencies but they don’t, and never have, entered {{isdama}}s.<ref>They may trade [[contracts for difference]] and make spread bets with brokers, but these are standardised, smaller contracts.</ref> The ISDA is for grown-ups. Equals.


And, to be sure, swaps ''are'' different from loans and brokerage arrangements. They start off “at market” where all is square. Either party may be long or short, fixed or floating. At the moment the trade is struck, the world infused with glorious ''possibility''. One fellow’s fortunes may rise or fall relative to the other’s and, as a result, she may ''owe'' (“[[out-of-the-money]]”) or ''be owed'' (“[[in-the-money]]”). And swaps, too, are professional instruments. Moms and pops, [[Belgian dentist]]s and the like may take loans and buy bonds, but they don’t, and never have, entered {{isdama}}s.<ref>They may trade [[contracts for difference]] and make spread bets with brokers, but these are standardised, smaller contracts.</ref>
So much so that, other than below the dotted lines where you type the counterparty names, the pre-printed part of {{isdama}} itself does not even use the expressions “{{isdaprov|Party A}}” or “{{isdaprov|Party B}}”. Being genuinely bilateral, it never has to.  


Now the {{isdama}} ''itself'' never uses the terms “Party A” or “Party B”. Being genuinely bilateral, it never has to. Being arbitrary assignations at trade level the labels only get a mention once the symmetry breaks down in the {{isdaprov|Schedule}} and in {{isdaprov|Confirmation}}s, to be clear who is who on a given trade: who is paying the fixed rate and who the floating; which thresholds, maxima, minima, covenants, details, agents and terms apply to which counterparty. This much is necessarily different. Nothing beyond: the {{isdama}} assumes you already know who is who, having agreed it in the {{isdaprov|Schedule}}.
Party-specific labels are only needed once the studied symmetry of the Master Agreement gives way to the need, articulated in in the {{isdaprov|Schedule}} and {{isdaprov|Confirmation}}s, to stipulate who is taking which side on a given trade, giving which covenant or submitting to which {{isdaprov|Additional Termination Event}}.  


So we agree: for this relationship we will call you “Party B”, and me “Party A”.  
The parties may be equals, but we still need to know who is going to pay the [[fixed rate]] and who the [[Floating rate|floating]]; which thresholds, maxima, minima, covenants, details, agents and terms apply to which party. This much is necessarily different. Nothing beyond: the {{isdama}} assumes you already know who is who, having agreed it in the {{isdaprov|Schedule}}.


These colourless and generic terms hark from a time where, we presume, the idea of “find and replace all” in an electronic document seemed some kind of devilish black magic. Some kind of [[Tipp-Ex]]-denying subterfuge.  
So we agree: for this swap trading relationship we will call you “Party B”, and me “Party A”. Beyond these colourless labels, we are equal.


But anyway. These generic labels still lead to practical difficulties. A [[dealer]] with ten thousand counterparties in its portfolio wants to be “Party A” every time, just for peace of mind and literary continuity when perusing its collection of Schedules, as we know [[dealer]]s on occasion are minded to do.<ref>They are not.</ref> If, here and there, a dealer must be “Party B”, this can lead to anxious moments should one misread such a Schedule and infer its infinite [[IM]] {{csaprov|Threshold}} applies to the other guy, when really, as it ought, it applies to you. Frights like this are, in their way, quite energising.
But they are maddeningly forgettable labels: harking from a time where the idea of “find and replace all” in an electronic document seemed like [[Tipp-Ex]]-denying, devilish magic. It might have been easier — and saved some curial angst— had parties been able to use ''unique'' identifying labels across their agreement portfolios.  
You quickly get over them when you realise it is your error of construal, not the negotiator’s of articulation.  


Less energising are actual errors: as a group, [[negotiator]]s are redoubtable, admirable creatures but, like all of us fallible and prone to oversight: they may, by lowly force of habit, forget to invert the “Party” labels when inserting the boilerplate {{isdaprov|PPF Event}} rider for that one time in a thousand when the firm is not “Party A”. It is easily done, and just the sort of thing a [[four-eyes check]] will also miss: If it does, no-one will never know — ''unless and until it is too late''.
{{Quote|It was, I am afraid, a rather sloppily drafted document. First, it described LBIE as Party A and LBF as Party B, contrary to the Schedule which gave them the opposite descriptions.
:—Briggs, J, in ''Lehman Brothers International (Europe) v. Lehman Brothers Finance S.A.'' [2012] EWHC 1072 (Ch)}}


But there is a better objection: for all our automatic protestations to the contrary, the ISDA is not ''really'' a bilateral contract, and it ''is'' often a financing contract, in economic effect even if not in formal structure. Where there is a customer gaining exposure to a risk and a dealer providing delta-hedged exposure to that risk, a swap is a sort of “synthetic loan”.
Being ''so'' generic, the “Party A” and “Party B” labels can lead to practical difficulties: a [[dealer]] with thirty thousand counterparties wants to be “Party A” every time, just for peace of mind and literary continuity when perusing its collection of Schedules, as we know [[dealer]]s on occasion are minded to do.<ref>They are not.</ref> This is not just a matter of having to play in your “away strip” every now and then: if, here and there, a dealer must be “Party B”, having lost the toss to a counterparty who also insists on being Party A, this can lead to anxious moments, should one have momentarily forgotten the switch during the negotiation and assigned your carefully-argued infinite [[IM]] {{csaprov|Threshold}} to the other guy.


This thought grew and grew and now there is a [[A swap as a loan|whole new article about it]].
Frights like this are quite energising, if you pick them up during the “four eyes check” at the conclusion of [[onboarding]].<ref>You won’t.</ref> Less so, when Briggs J catches them for you when handing down a judgment from the commercial division of the High Court.<ref>He will.</ref>

Latest revision as of 09:38, 4 February 2024

Bilateral
/ˌbaɪˈlætᵊrᵊl/ (adj.)
Having, or relating to, two sides; affecting both sides equally.

In this episode JC considers the “bilateral” nature of the ISDA Master Agreement, why swap participants alone amongst financial players are called “counterparties”, and what this confusing “Party A” and “Party B” business is all about.

The unpresumptuous way it labels the parties to a Transaction sets the ISDA apart from its fellow finance contracts. They give it a sort of otherworldly aloofness; a sense of utopian equality. Other finance contracts label their participants to make it clear who, in the power structure, is who: a loan has a “Lender” — the bank; always the master — and a “Borrower” — the punter; always the servant. A brokerage agreement has a “Broker” (master) and a “Customer” (servant).

Okay, I know theoretically the master/servant dynamic is meant to be the other way around — the customer is king and everything — but come on: when it comes to finance it isn’t, is it? We are users, all hooked up to the great battery grid, for the pleasure of our banking overlords and the pan-dimensional mice who control them.

But not when it comes to the ISDA Master Agreement. From the outset, the First Men who framed it opted for the more gnomic, interchangeable and equal labels “Party A” and “Party B”.

Why? Well, we learn it from our supervising associate, when we first encounter a Schedule.

Bilaterality.

Bilaterality

Abelief in even-handedness gripped the ones whose deep magic forged the runes of that ancient First Swap. It has not just a two-sided structure — most private contractual arrangements have that — but a symmetrical one, lacking the dominance and subservience that traditional finance contracts imply.

In the ISDA there is not — necessarily — a large “have” indulging a small “have-not” with favours of loaned money, for which it extracts excruciating covenants, gives not a jot in return, and enjoys a preferred place amongst the customer’s many scrapping creditors.

Swaps, as the First Men saw them, would not be like that. Not necessarily.

“A swap shall be an exchange among peers: an equal-opportunity, righteous sort of thing under whose auspices, one is neither lender nor borrower, but simply an honest rival for the favour of Lady Fortune, however capricious may she be. Those who swap things are not master and servant, but rivals.

“Let us call them Counterparties.”

This foundation myth imagines “swaps” in a pure, innocent, trading-bubble-gum-cards-in-the-playground way.

“I have two Emerson Fittipaldis, you have two Mario Andrettis, we can increase each other’s net happiness and thereby the world’s by swapping so we both have one of each.”

In the playground there are no brokers or dealers of bubble gum cards to intermediate, make markets and provide liquidity, let alone a trusted central clearer. It is a peer-to-peer, decentralised marketplace.[1]

And, to be sure, swaps are different from loans and brokerage arrangements. They start “at market”, where all is square. Either party may be long or short, fixed or floating: at the moment the trade is struck, the world infused with glorious possibility.

One fellow’s fortunes may rise or fall relative to the other’s and, as a result, she may owe (in the vernacular, be “out-of-the-money”) or be owed (“in-the-money”) at different times as the transaction wends its way to maturity.

Covenants, collateral, credit support and so on may, thereby, flow either way. They may flow both ways. In our time of regulatory margin, they usually do.

And swaps, too, are the preserve of professional investors, who know what they are doing. Usually, they know it better than the bank employees they face, having once themselves been bank employees. Mums and dads, Belgian dentists and the like may take loans, buy bonds, have a flutter on the share market and even trade cryptocurrencies but they don’t, and never have, entered ISDA Master Agreements.[2] The ISDA is for grown-ups. Equals.

So much so that, other than below the dotted lines where you type the counterparty names, the pre-printed part of ISDA Master Agreement itself does not even use the expressions “Party A” or “Party B”. Being genuinely bilateral, it never has to.

Party-specific labels are only needed once the studied symmetry of the Master Agreement gives way to the need, articulated in in the Schedule and Confirmations, to stipulate who is taking which side on a given trade, giving which covenant or submitting to which Additional Termination Event.

The parties may be equals, but we still need to know who is going to pay the fixed rate and who the floating; which thresholds, maxima, minima, covenants, details, agents and terms apply to which party. This much is necessarily different. Nothing beyond: the ISDA Master Agreement assumes you already know who is who, having agreed it in the Schedule.

So we agree: for this swap trading relationship we will call you “Party B”, and me “Party A”. Beyond these colourless labels, we are equal.

But they are maddeningly forgettable labels: harking from a time where the idea of “find and replace all” in an electronic document seemed like Tipp-Ex-denying, devilish magic. It might have been easier — and saved some curial angst— had parties been able to use unique identifying labels across their agreement portfolios.

It was, I am afraid, a rather sloppily drafted document. First, it described LBIE as Party A and LBF as Party B, contrary to the Schedule which gave them the opposite descriptions.

—Briggs, J, in Lehman Brothers International (Europe) v. Lehman Brothers Finance S.A. [2012] EWHC 1072 (Ch)

Being so generic, the “Party A” and “Party B” labels can lead to practical difficulties: a dealer with thirty thousand counterparties wants to be “Party A” every time, just for peace of mind and literary continuity when perusing its collection of Schedules, as we know dealers on occasion are minded to do.[3] This is not just a matter of having to play in your “away strip” every now and then: if, here and there, a dealer must be “Party B”, having lost the toss to a counterparty who also insists on being Party A, this can lead to anxious moments, should one have momentarily forgotten the switch during the negotiation and assigned your carefully-argued infinite IM Threshold to the other guy.

Frights like this are quite energising, if you pick them up during the “four eyes check” at the conclusion of onboarding.[4] Less so, when Briggs J catches them for you when handing down a judgment from the commercial division of the High Court.[5]

  1. ↑ Oh, wait. Hang on. There was. It was Peason Minor in 3B. That made a two-way market in foopballers, F1 drivers and Top Trumps military planes and supercars. That guy was incredible. Wonder what he’s doing now. [CIO at GSAM — Ed.] Okay so most metaphors don’t bear close examination.
  2. ↑ They may trade contracts for difference and make spread bets with brokers, but these are standardised, smaller contracts.
  3. ↑ They are not.
  4. ↑ You won’t.
  5. ↑ He will.
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