The Atlantis Variation
The 2008 ISDA Master Agreement, also known as the “Atlantis agreement”, is a rumoured edition of the ISDA Master Agreement, which, according to legend, was almost completed in September 2008, but never saw the light of day. Instead it collapsed into a form of dark energy that powers the universe.
Had it been implemented, it would have addressed the financial, infrastructural and regulatory challenges which dominated the derivatives trading market in the early 21st century. It would have consolidated documentation across a wide range of products (including but not limited to repo, stock lending, prime brokerage, exchange traded derivatives, commodities and emissions, finally moving the financial world into a stable state: a sunlit utopia in which all risks are known, all eventualities experienced and contingencies accounted for. Risk would finally be banished for ever.
It was to be short, plainly worded, preternaturally future-proofed, agile agreement allowing counterparties to agree trading terms with little fuss and only the cursory forensic management that could be garnered through unskilled personel in low-cost off-shore jurisdictions or, eventually, robots. It even used distributed legder technology. You know, block-chain.
What happened?
As it was, the challenge was just too big. The project expanded — at first gradually; in the closing stages at breakneck pace — and in the final days exceeded its Schwarzschild radius altogether. There was a sudden, catastrophic implosion, and everything associated with the project — all traces of the agreement, earlier drafts, the firm ISDA engaged to coordinate the drafting (Messrs Tubb Fuller Breaden Potter Bacon)[1] and several thousand members of ISDA’s document working group seconded by their employers to contributing their “clarifications” and doubt-avoidances for the greater good of the standard form. All — the document, the personnel, and the drafting miscellania and tedia — have been lost to history, and we now do not know what the agreement said, how it said it, or indeed whether the agreement really existed at all. And the robots —
The shoulders of Orion 2006-1 CDO
Well, speaking of robots, it is said that Roy Batty’s speech from Blade Runner (1982) fell through a hole in the space-time continuum created by shockwaves from the implosion. Rutger Hauer adapted it, but only slightly, from this exchange, between an ETD negotiator and a mortally injured CDO lawyer as he dragged his wrecked psyche away from the smoking ruins of his investment bank:
“You thought you knew everything, didn't you,” said the hapless futures expert. He sneered. “And now look at us. You did this. You have no idea.”
The CDO man turned, a replicant glimmer in his eye, and said this:
- I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
- Attack-ships on fire off the red-herring of Orion 2006-1 hybrid CDO.
- I watched mezzanine-tranches glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
- All those moments will be lost in time, like payments in kind.
- Time to retrain as a primary school teacher.