Netting of Payments - ISDA Provision
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ISDA Anatomy™
then those obligations will be satisfied and replaced by an obligation on the party owing the larger amount to pay the difference. The parties may net payments across multiple specified Transactions by applying “Multiple Transaction Payment Netting” (and clause 2(c)(ii) will therefore not apply).
Multiple Transaction Payment Netting arrangements may apply to different groups of Transactions, will apply separately to each pairing of specified Offices and will take effect as agreed between the parties.
by each party to the other, then, on such date, each party’s obligation to make payment of any such amount will be automatically satisfied and discharged and, if the aggregate amount that would otherwise have been payable by one party exceeds the aggregate amount that would otherwise have been payable by the other party, replaced by an obligation upon the party by which the larger aggregate amount would have been payable to pay to the other party the excess of the larger aggregate amount over the smaller aggregate amount. The parties may elect in respect of two or more Transactions that a net amount and payment obligation will be determined in respect of all amounts payable on the same date in the same currency in respect of those Transactions, regardless of whether such amounts are payable in respect of the same Transaction. The election may be made in the Schedule or any Confirmation by specifying that “Multiple Transaction Payment Netting” applies to the Transactions identified as being subject to the election (in which case clause 2(c)(ii) above will not apply to such Transactions). If Multiple Transaction Payment Netting is applicable to Transactions, it will apply to those Transactions with effect from the starting date specified in the Schedule or such Confirmation, or, if a starting date is not specified in the Schedule or such Confirmation, the starting date otherwise agreed by the parties in writing. This election may be made separately for different groups of Transactions and will apply separately to each pairing of Offices through which the parties make and receive payments or deliveries.
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Settlement netting
Note this section refers only to settlement netting — the operational settlement of offsetting payments due on any day under the normal operation of the Agreement —- and not the more drastic close-out netting, which is the Early Termination of all Transactions under Section 6.
If you want close-out netting, see here:
A contrarian writes
Amwell J, our resident contrarian, wonders what on earth the point of this provision is since settlement netting is a factual operational process for performing existing legal obligations, rather than any kind of variation of the parties’ rights and obligations. If, on a day, you owe me ten pounds and I owe you ten pounds, and on that day we agree to both keep our tenners, what cause of arises? What loss is there? We have settled our existing obligations in different way. To be sure, if I pay you and you don't pay me that's a different story — but then there is no settlement netting at all. The only time one would wish to enforce settlement netting it must have happened.
So, friends, this rather convoluted passage in that mighty industry standard is, as G. K. Chesterton once said - merely piss and wind.
Multiple Transaction Payment Netting
"Multiple Transaction Payment Netting" is a defined term introduced in the 2002 ISDA in place of the more clunky 1992 ISDA language set out in Section 2(c).
In the 1992 ISDA, to specify that netting across transactions would apply, you must disapply Section 2(c)(ii). Counterintuitive, but true (because otherwise netting only applies "in respect of the same Transaction").
That is partly why, in the 2002 ISDA they introduced the more intuitive Multiple Transaction Payment Netting concept. So now you can say "Multiple Transaction Payment Netting does (or does not) apply".
Good on them, eh?