Template:Gmsla 10.4 summ

Consequential loss

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.

That is the general position. Specifically under the GMSLA, consequential losses are expressly 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 {{{{{1}}}|Lender}} expects to underwrite the value of the {{{{{1}}}|Borrower}}’s lost opportunity to short if it fails to settle a {{{{{1}}}|Loan}}. Each {{{{{1}}}|Loan}} is designed to be easily cancelled at will by either party. There are specific self-help remedies for settlement failures (e.g., {{{{{1}}}|Buy-In}}s). 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 — and it is a sore one for many underoccupied lawyers, 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 {{{{{1}}}|9}} and {{{{{1}}}|11}}”

But what of the cagey caveat about Paragraph {{{{{1}}}|9}} ({{{{{1}}}|Failure to Deliver}}) and Paragraph {{{{{1}}}|11}} ({{{{{1}}}|Consequences of an Event of Default}})? Search me. There is no obvious exception to the ban on consequential loss in paragraph {{{{{1}}}|9}}, which talks about {{{{{1}}}|Buy-In}}s and other self-help remedies which militate pretty hard against consequential damages. Likewise, Paragraph {{{{{1}}}|11}} 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 {{{{{1}}}|11.3}} in particular.