ISDA Anatomy™
In a Nutshell™ Section 8(a):
8(a) Payment in the Contractual Currency: Each payment under this Agreement must be made in the currency specified for that payment (the “Contractual Currency”). Payments made in a Non-Contractual Currency will only discharge an obligation to the extent the recipient, having converted it into the Contractual Currency in good faith using commercially reasonable procedures, achieves the full amount payable in the Contractual Currency.
- (i) If the converted amount falls short of the amount payable in the Contractual Currency, the payer must immediately pay the necessary balance in the Contractual Currency.
- (ii) If the converted amount exceeds the full amount payable in the Contractual Currency, the payee must promptly refund the excess.
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2002 ISDA full text of Section 8(a):
8(a) Payment in the Contractual Currency. Each payment under this Agreement will be made in the relevant currency specified in this Agreement for that payment (the “Contractual Currency”). To the extent permitted by applicable law, any obligation to make payments under this Agreement in the Contractual Currency will not be discharged or satisfied by any tender in any currency other than the Contractual Currency, except to the extent such tender results in the actual receipt by the party to which payment is owed, acting in good faith and using commercially reasonable procedures in converting the currency so tendered into the Contractual Currency, of the full amount in the Contractual Currency of all amounts payable in respect of this Agreement. If for any reason the amount in the Contractual Currency so received falls short of the amount in the Contractual Currency payable in respect of this Agreement, the party required to make the payment will, to the extent permitted by applicable law, immediately pay such additional amount in the Contractual Currency as may be necessary to compensate for the shortfall. If for any reason the amount in the Contractual Currency so received exceeds the amount in the Contractual Currency payable in respect of this Agreement, the party receiving the payment will refund promptly the amount of such excess.
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Click here for the text of Section 8(a) in the 1992 ISDA
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One could have stopped after the first sentence, but it is a rare ISDA ninja that can help himself babbling. ISDA ninjas would make terrible used-car salepeople.
Why the ISDA Master Agreement feels the need to contemplate the discharge of obligations in one currency by payment of an amount in another — non-compliance with the clear terms of the contract in other words — we can only guess. The payer’s ability to plow this obverse furrow still depends on the payee’s good humour: the payee is not obliged to indulge the payer, but may, by converting the tendered amount into the Contractual Currency.
If there is a shortfall, the payer must pay it immediately — fair, since the payer is craving the recipient’s indulgence in the first place and is really courting a Failure to Pay or Deliver by his cavalier behaviour.
If there is an excess, the recipient must return it promptly — also fair, seeing as she didn’t ask to be paid in Brazilian real, and had to go to all the trouble of converting it and faffing around at the FX counter at that little shop in the arcade near Liverpool Street.