FT book about derivatives

Proof of the old adage, “if you pay monkeys, you get peanuts”. Mastering the ISDA Master Agreements: A Practical Guide for Negotiation costs a lot of money and takes a fair amount of shelf-space, sets out the terms of the ISDA Master Agreement and then summarises them in so many words but says very little about the practical business of negotiating an ISDA.

Negotiation Anatomy™ →Go uptown the goddam thing follows me round Walk-away | Escalation | Algorithm | Heuristic | subject matter expert | Operationalisation | Playbook | Smart contract | Dead horse | Knife fight | 7 wastes | Cruddy legal advice Index: Click ᐅ to expand: Negotiation Negotiation hacks Contract 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.

“In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Jolly Contrarian’s ISDA anatomy has already supplanted the great Mastering the ISDA Master Agreements: A Practical Guide for Negotiation as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in three important respects. First, it is a lot cheaper; secondly it has the words “IT’S ALL NONSENSE” inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover; and third, it actually contains some useful information.”

See also

• The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
• Similarly hefty, but curiously lightweight, FT book about stock loans
• A Manual of Style For the Drafting of Contracts — Ken Adams’ heartfelt plea for contractual elegance, doomed, alas, to fall upon the deaf ears of the American Bar Association.