Cancellation Amount - Equity Derivatives Provision

2002 ISDA Equity Derivatives Definitions A Jolly Contrarian owner’s manual™ Resources and navigation Resources About the Equity Derivatives Definitions | (full wikitext) | (nutshell wikitext) | Equity v credit derivatives showdown Hot topics Synthetic Prime Brokerage Anatomy | The Triple Cocktail | Cancellation and Payment | Calculation Agent Resources About the Equity Derivatives Definitions | (full wikitext) | (nutshell wikitext) | Equity v credit derivatives showdown Hot topics Synthetic Prime Brokerage Anatomy | The Triple Cocktail | Cancellation and Payment | Calculation Agent TOC | 1 General Definitions | 2 Option Transactions | 3 Exercise of Options | 4 Forward Transactions | 5 Equity Swap Transactions | 6 Valuation | 7 Settlement | 8 Cash Settlement | 9 Physical Settlement | 10 Dividends | 11 Adjustments and Modifications | 12 Extraordinary Events · 12.8 Cancellation Amount · 12.9 Additional Disruption Events · 12.9 List of ADEs · 12.9(b) Consequences of ADEs | 13 Miscellaneous Index: Click ᐅ to expand: Equity Derivatives - Premium Synthetic Prime Brokerage Section 12.8(a) in a Nutshell™ Use at your own risk, campers! 12.8(a): “Cancellation Amount” means the gains or losses the Determining Party would incur under prevailing circumstances in replacing (i) the material terms of the Transaction, including payments and deliveries that would, but for the Extraordinary Event, have been required after termination and (ii) the parties’ option rights under the Transaction. view template Full text of Section 12.8(a) 12.8(a) “Cancellation Amount” means, with respect to a Determining Party, the amount of the losses or costs of the Determining Party that are or would be incurred under then prevailing circumstances (expressed as a positive number) or gains of the Determining Party that are or would be realized under then prevailing circumstances (expressed as a negative number) in replacing, or in providing for the Determining Party the economic equivalent of, (i) the material terms of the relevant Transaction, including the payments and deliveries by the parties under the ISDA Master Agreement in respect of the relevant Transaction that would, but for the occurrence of the Extraordinary Event, have been required on or after the date that the Transaction is, or is deemed to have been, terminated or cancelled (assuming satisfaction of any applicable conditions precedent in the ISDA Master Agreement) and (ii) the option rights of the parties in respect of the relevant Transaction. view template Tell me more Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

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Section 12.8. Cancellation Amount

12.8(a) “Cancellation Amount”

12.8(b) “Means of determination”

12.8(c) “Determination”

12.8(d) “Quotations”

12.8(e) “Liquidation of hedges”

12.8(f) “Determining Party”

12.8(g) “Commercially reasonable procedures”

If it’s a beast under the 2002 ISDA Equity Derivatives Definitions, it was going to be worse under the (ill-fated) 2011 ISDA Equity Derivatives Definitions, though it seems, after nearly a decade of solemn inactivity, we will never now know just how bad it was going to be.

But we can take some solace that, somewhere out in the multiverse there is an alternative us, inhabiting a world just like this one, only in which the market adopted the 2011 Equity Derivatives Definitions instead of roundly ignoring them, as ours has done.

In that accursed parallel universe, our mortal equivalents — good people; kind people; people who otherwise resemble you and me, readers — who live, love and aspire to intellectual and moral fulfillment, just as we do — those poor souls have had to endure this unending hardship. We may not know, we cannot tell what pains they have had to bear, so it falls to Clifford Chance — not without some hubris, we feel — to imagine it for us:

“This provision has been amended heavily and now runs to over 10 pages. It sets out different optional methods of calculating the transaction value, rather than following a purely replacement value approach (as under the 2002 Definitions) which was considered not to be appropriate in all cases. Greater detail is also provided as to how and when the Cancellation Amount is to be determined, what data is to be taken into account and how losses/gains resulting from hedge close-outs are allocated.”

On the other hand, in that parallel universe there is also a squadron of Linklaters FPML Avenger torpedo bomber pilots that survived to a ripe old age, and now while away their days in front of the hearthstone, regaling their grandchildren about the time they saved western civilisation as we know it by converting those dangerous, texty old 2002 ISDA Equity Derivatives Definitions into machine-readable markup language.

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Summary

Cancellation Amount is a beast of a definition. But when you boil it down, it’s pretty straightforward. It applies when terminating a Transaction following an Extraordinary Event or an Additional Disruption Event. Importantly, by dint of Section 12.8(e), the Determining Party may pass through hedge breakage costs and losses.

Geopolitical events

Now, what gains or losses might the Determining Party incur in replacing the material terms of the Transaction if, due to wars, sanctions and other miscellaneous geopolitical hanky-panky, a market gets totally shut down? If, for example, the outside world has imposed economic sanctions on the jurisdiction in which your Shares trade (as, at the time of writing, seems far possible for Russia), of if the Shares’ jurisdiction itself imposes sanctions on money coming in from or going out to the outside world (as did Greece, for a brief moment, in 2015)?

Well, worst case, the holder of a long swap position might get a doughnut. The holder of a short position could, conceivably, lose even more, were the value of affected Shares to spike during the sanctions, but that seems practically unlikely: the nature of economic sanctions and geopolitical turmoil tends not to boost local equity markets and, we imagine, generally would make affected shares go down in price. Here the problem might instead be that the holder of the short position can’t close out, despite desperately wanting to.

In either case, the dealer’s attitude is likely to be the same: “I can’t see a bid-ask to do what I need to do to [keep a long position going/close a short position out] (delete as applicable). If you can find me such a bid or ask I can trade on I will, but if not, I regret to say you may get bupkis.”

Now the nature of geopolitical events is to be unpredictable. They may manifest themselves in different and unexpected ways, so — while no-one likes to rag on ISDA’s crack drafting squad™ more than the JC does, readers, you know that — you can’t really blame the ’squad for not setting out the myriad of unintended knock-on consequences there might be to your equity derivative portfolio as a result of an unwarranted military incursion in the Urals.

Talk to your clients

That said, it is all about managing expectations. The other typical characteristic of geopolitical hanky-panky is that it rarely comes out of the blue: it brews, there is posturing, brinkspersonship, manoeuvering before anything happens. This is a good time to get out and talk to your clients. Remember the name of the game is to manage client expectations: a client who didn’t know it had some risk, even though it should have known (or, in fact did know but in a moment of motivated irrationality had conveniently forgotten) is more likely to be upset when that risk materialises than one who did know, because you reminded it. Your goal, remember, is not to win litigation with your customers, but avoid it.

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General discussion

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See also

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