Template:Set-off and netting
The difference between close-out netting and set-off
- Close-out netting, in the learned words of Allen & Overy, is a contractual process comprising early termination, valuation and determination of a net balance. This last step may involve a contractual set-off but, saucily, the considered view of ISDA’s counsel for England and Wales is that the net effect of the agreement is to arrive a a net balance without the good offices of contractual set-off[1] According to the UNIDROIT[2], close-out netting resembles the classical insolvency set-off, but is purportedly wider: general set-off requires mutual debts that are already due, while close-out netting envisages the netting of obligations that are not yet due.[3] Thus, set-off is narrower that close-out netting.
- Set-off is a legal principle permitting (or requiring) a debtor to discharge its debt by setting off a cross-claim owed to the debtor against the debt. There are various legal bases for set-off, including, under English law, equitable set-off, set-off in judicial proceedings under the Civil Procedure Rules, statutory set-off under the Insolvency Rules 1986 upon a winding upor administration and contractual set-off.
- ↑ Sigh - except where there are unpaid amounts payable under Section 2(a)(i). You knew there’d be some kind of qualification though, didn’t you.
- ↑ [https://www.unidroit.org/instruments/capital-markets/netting “Principles on the operation of close-out netting provisions”
- ↑ The ISDA Master Agreement achieves this by accelerating them, mind.