Template:M summ 1992 ISDA Potential Event of Default

A Potential Event of Default is a Failure to Pay or Deliver, Breach of Agreement (or other Event of Default) with an unexpired grace period, or where the grace period has expired but the Non-defaulting Party hasn’t (yet) given a notice of default actually accelerating the default into an actual Event of Default.

That means, 2(a)(iii) defenders, that any formal breach of the ISDA Master Agreement, if notified by the Non-defaulting Party, renders the Section 2(a)(iii) conditions precedent unfulfilled, and means you can suspend performance of your obligations under all outstanding Transactions. I don’t make the rules, folks.

Actually, courtesy of that parenthetical “, or both,” it is worse even than that, though we think common courtesy (or at any rate, sense} would intervene to prevent non-notified formal breaches being acted upon. But not the literal terms of the ISDA: A formal breach — any non-compliance with its terms more grievous than a failure to provide tax certificates (that is specifically carved out) on commission suspends the other Party’s obligations until cured.

This is truly a custom more honoured in the breach than th’observance, and just as well: if ISDAs locked up every time a party was late with its annual Sox attestation only half the world’s swap financing would ever get paid.