Pension fund

A counterparty fraught with all sorts of complexity, fear, loathing etc, because it is looking after the retirement funds of grandmas and grandads around the world. This means that pension funds, and in particular their regulators, have the power to terrify counterparties at the mere crinkling of a brow.

• In the UK, the Pension Protection Fund can induce minor infarctions, and there is even a PPF Event Additional Termination Event to cater for it.
• In the US, the ERISA legislation is the key source of agitation, and there are screeds and screed of ERISA reps of all different shapes and sizes. Even say the word “ERISA” and you will induce hyperventilation in the more nervous kind of attorney. When an English lawyer speaks cavalierly about ERISA, American colleagues are apt to cry “YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE JUST DONE”.