Template:Eqdef adjustments and disruptions summ

There may be some logic to how ISDA’s crack drafting squad™ mapped out the various adjustments and disruptions that might happen in an equity derivative, but the method has evaporated and the madness only remains. You could organise these events and provisions along any number of different axes and make more or less sense, but the squad appears to have chosen not to, so it falls to us to make some sense of it. Let’s take it from the top.

What is affected?

Note that grounds for adjustment or termination generally relate not to the Transaction or the parties to it themselves — those are generlly covered by the ISDA Master Agreement — but the referenced “Underliers” (being Shares,Indices and Baskets) underlying it.

How is the Underlier affected?

The event causing trouble might be intrinsic to the Underlier itself — a merger, insolvency, nationalisation, index adjustment or index cancellation — or extrinsic to the Underlier itself, but adversely affecting how it is traded and therefore hedged: illegality, hedging disruption, illiquidity, increased cost of hedging.

Will it blow up the trade?

Some events won’t necessarily blow up the trade, but just require adjustments to the terms for the trade to make sense. If Tesla and Twitter merge into a new corporation called “Twisler”, for example, swaps written on Twitter and Tesla need to be adjusted to reference Twisler, and there may need to be adjustments made to notionals or strike prices to reflect the economics of the merger. These sort of adjustments shouldn’t necessarily cause an early unwind of the Transaction. Likewise, if an index formula or methodology is changed, there may be a need to adjust the economics of a swap referencing that index, but again there is no reason the Transaction itself cannot continue.

If the Hedging Party can’t hedge, on the other hand, it is a different story. This might happen if the Share is delisted (because its Issuer has hit the wall), an Index cancelled, or there is just no liquidity for any number of reasons (Russia invading Ukraine and being sanctioned — that sort of thing.

The sorts of adjustment:

Caption text

Action	Applies to	What it does	Comments
Calculation Agent Adjustment	Index Adjustment Event Dilution or Concentration Event Merger Event Tender Offer	Allows the Calculation Agent discretion to determine whether the adjustment is material and if so adjust the terms of the Transaction to account for its economic effects (or if not possible, for Mergers and Tenders, to terminate the trade at Cancellation and Payment)	The Index Adjustment Events language is worded quite differently from the corresponding provision for Merger Events and Tender Offers. Note for the latter the CA may not adjust the spread or account for changes in volatility, dividends, stock loan rates or liquidity).
Modified Calculation Agent Adjustment	Merger Event Tender Offer	Same as normal Calculation Agent Adjustment only you are allowed to adjust the spread and make changes for volatility, dividends, stock loan rates and liquidity	See comparison between Calculation Agent Adjustment and Modified Calculation Agent Adjustment
Options Exchange Adjustment	Dilution or Concentration Event Merger Event Tender Offer	Calculation Agent will adjust the terms of the Transaction to reflect adjustments made to exchange-traded options on the Underlier (or that the Calculation Agent determines would have been made had there been exchange-traded options on the shares).	Merger Event and Tender Offer refers back to the Dilution or Concentration Event wording (but ignores the “diluting or concentrative effect” bit).
Cancellation and Payment	Example	Example	Example
Partial Cancellation and Payment	Example	Example	Example
Component Adjustment	Example	Example	Example
Component Adjustment	Example	Example	Example