Template:Isda 1(b) summ

It wouldn’t be ISDA if there weren’t a hierarchy clause; like all hierarchy clauses, this one states what ought to be obvious: the pre-printed ISDA Master Agreement itself sits at the bottom of the hierarchy, is modified by the {{{{{1}}}|Schedule}}; once that is negotiated and stuck into the netting database, the {{{{{1}}}|Schedule}} sits there, ungainly, unloved and unregarded until the Great King of Terror comes down from the sky and may be (but generally isn’t) modified as needs be for each {{{{{1}}}|Transaction}} by the {{ {{{1}}}|Confirmation}}.

One quick point that only needs saying when busy-bodies from internal audit come looking for worms and earwigs under rocks: you never, never, never inline amend the ISDA Master Agreement. If you want to amend its terms —

In point of fact the {{ {{{1}}}|Confirmation}}s don’t tend to modify anything in the Master or {{ {{{1}}}|Schedule}}, but rather builds on them, but if there is inconsistency — and with a document as pedantic and overwrought as the ISDA Master Agreement you never know — then the most specific, recently edited document will be the one that prevails.

All of this follows from general principles of contractual interpretation and common sense communication, of course.