Consequential loss - Pledge GMSLA Provision
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2018 Global Master Securities Lending Agreement (Pledge Version)
Clause 10.3 in a Nutshell™ Use at your own risk, campers!
Full text of Clause 10.3
Related agreements and comparisons
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Content and comparisons
Clause 10.4 of the 2010 GMSLA and its equivalent under the 2018 Pledge GMSLA, Clause 10.3, are identical.
Summary
Consequential loss
In general
There’s a lovely long essay about consequential loss, at the consequential loss page. Consequential losses — in a nutshell, one’s lost opportunity to profit elsewhere because one is tethered into this dud contract and is faithfully abstaining from the fleshy pleasures to be had in fruitier parts of the commercial plane — are not generally available as a measure of damages under a contract (historically they were excluded as a rule; nowadays the common law regard it as a simple question of whether the loss was properly caused and reasonably foreseeable; losses that are consequential in nature may be forseeable, but it will only be in unusual circumstances.
Specifically for stock lending
That is the general position. Under the GMSLA, consequential losses are specifically excluded because they are, by nature, speculative, indeterminate and not reasonably foreseeable in the context of a stock lending arrangement. It is commonly understood that parties to a stock loan do not have in mind the potential profits each other could make with the securities or collateral transferred under the loan:
- No expectations: No 2018 Pledge GMSLA expects to underwrite the value of the 2018 Pledge GMSLA’s lost opportunity to short if it fails to settle a 2018 Pledge GMSLA.
- They’re callable: Each 2018 Pledge GMSLA is designed to be easily cancelled at will by either party.
- Self-help remedies are available: There are specific self-help remedies for settlement failures (e.g., 2018 Pledge GMSLAs). It is hard to see how there could be any expectation that consequential losses would be available for breach, and it helps for the agreement to make that explicit. It reflects the industry expectation, and takes away the temptation — sore one, for many an underoccupied lawyer — to argue that for some special reason that consequential loss might be appropriate in some cases — and here one should never underestimate the boundless imagination (or paranoia) of an underoccupied lawyer, particularly during the contract negotiation phase, to confabulate hypothetical special reasons.
We have seen it argued that a counterparty’s “fraud or wilful misconduct” is such a reason. But why? For what reason would why a contract is breached matter to the measure of damages for breach? And, besides, how could you be fraudulent or badly behaved in a stock-lending agreement anyway?
“Subject to Paragraphs 2018 Pledge GMSLA and 2018 Pledge GMSLA”
But what of the cagey caveat about Paragraph 2018 Pledge GMSLA (2018 Pledge GMSLA) and Paragraph 2018 Pledge GMSLA (2018 Pledge GMSLA)? Search me. There is no obvious exception to the ban on consequential loss in paragraph 2018 Pledge GMSLA, which talks about 2018 Pledge GMSLAs and other self-help remedies which militate pretty hard against consequential damages. Likewise, Paragraph 2018 Pledge GMSLA goes to some lengths to articulate and itemise the termination amount calculations, all of which are focused on actually incurred expenses, and there is nothing in there that talks about loss of opportunities — see Paragraph 2018 Pledge GMSLA in particular. If you see anything looking like consequential loss in here (this is the JC’s nutshell summary by the way) you have better eyesight than me.
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11.3 The Default Market Value of a Letter of Credit will be zero. For any Equivalent Securities or any other Equivalent Non-Cash Collateral it will be determined under paragraphs 11.4 to 11.6 below, where:
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